Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper focuses on a newly available body of firsthand knowledge of the practices of US counter-terrorism today to outline a sympathetic critique of efforts within international political sociology and the broader subfield of critical international rel

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the U.S. base in Guantánamo, Cuba as a racialized space from its creation during U.S. occupation of Cuba in 1898 to current detention reserved primarily to persons of color. The base is a product of the Platt Amendment (1901), making Cuba a U.S. protectorate, denying Cuba full sovereignty, and requiring a U.S. base in Cuban territory. Race justified these sovereignty limitations. Notions of Anglo superiority, “Latin,” black, and mixed-race inability to govern, and Protestant missions characterized U.S. foreign relations with Cuba and the world. Military and economic objectives required Cuba lease a base to the U.S., under present non-sovereign terms. Historic racial power in foreign relations and international law created Guantánamo. Race similarly colors detention in the “War on Terror.” While detainees, including those released, total over 700 and represent 47 nationalities detention is primarily reserved to South Asian, Middle-Eastern, or Arab identities. Painting detainees as “jihadists” serves as proxies for Muslim detention. “Unlawful enemy combatant” classifications mimic historic identities of the “savage.” Detainees are while "savages" were excluded from international law protections. Race whether tied to nationality, religion, or neo-savagery, characterizes Guantánamo, illuminating critical commonalities in myriad nationalities and detainee classifications. Despite diverse identities, being in Guantánamo’s legal space imposes these commonalities. Foreign relations history created racialized space. Detention keeps it current. Using insights from geography, post-colonialism, and history, this paper identifies racialized power in the law and asks how rights protections may check this power in U.S. peripheries.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Legal scholars who take up the issue of US treatment of ?enemy combatants? in this post-9/11 era are rightly concerned with active and official manipulations of the relevant international law. Authors painstakingly comb through the law, identify the protections that are supposed to be granted by relevant provisions of humanitarian and human rights law, and hold these provisions up against US practice. They appropriately conclude by saying that the United States is ?breaking the law? and ?making up rules that are empty of legal theory.? These analyses, however exhaustive in their review of the law, tend to assume that the law can and does have autonomous authority, quite delinked from the prerogatives of state power. This approach is both limited and serves to validate hegemonic power relations by depoliticizing the context in which the law operates. It is the case that US treatment of Guantánamo detainees evidences a serious departure from the legal community?s interpretation of, e.g., the Third Geneva Convention. However, if international law is what states want it to be, and if power functions to define the law, then the hegemonic state is well positioned to interpret and even reject commonly understood notions of legal responsibility. The paper argues that we must turn our attention to why the law (on torture and the treatment of prisoners of war) was so vulnerable to manipulation in the first place. It will examine two points: the limitations of legal scholarship that disregards the function of (in this case, American) power in law interpretation, and the responsibility of legal scholars to analyze the function of power in law as a way to explain ?violations? of the law as ongoing constructs. For the law to be what legal scholars who have been critical of the Bush administration want it to be, then scholarship should explore how the law can be loosened from the grip of state, and specifically hegemonic, control. The paper argues that, for this level of activism to be achieved, scholars should explore how the law itself, despite the radical implications for conventional international relations, must be more open to democratic accountability and oversight. Otherwise, the law will always and only be a limited way to constrain state behavior (as seen in the obvious example of Guantánamo and despite international outcry). Finally, the paper argues that responsible scholarship must acknowledge that existing law is and can only be one step toward creating conditions of justice ? and take as a starting point that even this one step is distorted with the privileges of power.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This poster presentation explores the cultural and racist assumptions implicit in the law facilitating U.S. occupation of the Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and detention on the base. It argues that U.S. law and its interpretation of international law carve a racialized space on the base. This is central to base creation during U.S. occupation of Cuba, 1898-1902, and to “War on Terror” base detention, which is reserved primarily to persons of color. The base is a product of the Platt Amendment (1901), making Cuba a U.S. protectorate, denying Cuba full sovereignty, and requiring a U.S. base in Cuban territory. Race, along with economic and geopolitical factors, justified these sovereignty limitations in U.S. law. Notions of Anglo superiority, and the inability to self-govern for “hispanic,” black, and mixed-race population characterized U.S. relations with Cuba. Strategic objectives required Cuba lease the base under present non-sovereign terms. The policies reflect international law, which generally precluded non-European populations from attaining full sovereignty. Historic racial power in foreign relations and law created the base at Guantánamo.

Recently, race colors base detention in the “War on Terror” in three ways. First, detention is primarily reserved to South and Central Asian, Middle-Eastern, or Arab identities. The total detention population (including those released) amounts to nearly 800 persons and includes 47 nationalities. An overwhelming number of detainees are citizens of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Second, U.S. policies painting detainees as “jihadists” serve as proxies for Muslim detention. Third, the “unlawful enemy combatant” classification mimics historic identities of the “savage.” Initially, detainees were not protected by Geneva conventions. Historically, “savages,” “barbarians,” and “natives” were excluded from similar international law protections. Race whether tied to nationality, religion, or neo-savagery, characterizes Guantánamo, illuminating critical commonalities in myriad nationalities. Despite diverse identities, being in Guantánamo’s space imposes these commonalities. Foreign relations history created this racialized space. Detention makes it current.

As a work-in-progress, this presentation correlates cultural studies and critical race theory with an analysis of legal jurisdiction on the base, historic and present. While President Barack Obama’s recent executive order promises to end base detention by January 2010, legal precedent and foreign relations practices keep detention (along with “interrogation” practices and individual rights abuses) engrained in U.S. law. This presentation builds on an article providing a post-colonial analysis of detention jurisprudence, titled “Boumediene v. Bush and Guantánamo, Cuba: does the "Empire Strike Back"?” 61 SMU Law Rev. (2009) and is part of a long-term research project titled “Guantánamo, War on Terror, and Law’s Imperial legacy: Examples in Race, Space, and Resources.” This article is attached.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The ICC prosecutor's decision to seek an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on ten counts of war crimes focuses on the politics (both real and perceived) of the prosecutor's role. Doctrinally, some scholars suggest that the Rome Statute's "deferential stance towards collective enterprises of states … weakens the ICC's ability to enforce international criminal justice." But few observers spell out a legal methodology to be employed if, in fact, such a trial gets underway. The current enforcement quagmire may be resolved and the Sudanese head of state might be extradited (now or after his official tenure ends). This paper addresses how we can transport the lessons of certain deficiencies in the United States' military commission proceedings in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to the context of the ICC's moves against al-Bashir. The international community must focus on two commonalities regarding both systems: (i) amorphous international legal structures susceptible to insider manipulation and political expediency; (ii) trials of politically unpopular defendants likely to receive prejudiced judicial fora.