'War on terror' - Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict

304 Pages·2009·1.71 MB·English

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‘War on terror’
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‘War on terror’
The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2006
edited by
Chris Miller
Manchester University Press
Manchester and New York
distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
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Copyright © Manchester University Press 2009
While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual
chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without
the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. The opinions expressed in this volume by
the contributors and editor are their own. They do not reflect the positions of Amnesty International, Oxford
Amnesty Lectures or Manchester University Press.
Published byManchester University Press
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Distributed in the United States exclusively by
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Distributed in Canada exclusively by
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 07190 7974 0 hardback
ISBN 978 07190 7975 7 paperback
First published 2009
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Contents
Preface page vii
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on contributors ix
Introduction: some notes on ‘terror’ Chris Miller 1
1 The function of narrative in the ‘war on terror’ Ahdaf Soueif 28
Response to Ahdaf Soueif Elleke Boehmer 43
2 Terrorism, war and international law Michael Byers 47
Response to Michael Byers Dino Kritsiotis 74
3 Human rights in an age of counter-terrorism Conor Gearty 83
Response to Conor Gearty Sandra Fredman 99
4 Terrorism: reflections on harming the innocent Thomas Pogge 105
Response to Thomas Pogge David Miller 136
5 War/terror/politics Bat-Ami Bar On 141
Response to Bat-Ami Bar On Thomas Dublin 156
6 War, terrorism and the ‘war on terror’ Jeff McMahan 159
Response to Jeff McMahan David Rodin 185
7 Islamic law, human rights and neo-colonialism Khaled Abou El Fadl 193
Response to Khaled Abou El Fadl Shayk Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti
and Dr. H.A. Hellyer 223
8 The threshold of the human: sexual violence and trauma in the
‘war on terror’ Joanna Bourke 227
Response to Joanna Bourke Avner Offer 248
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vi Contents
9 Defending the transgressed by censuring the reckless against
the killing of civilians Shayk Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti 253
I. Introduction and Taqriz Shaykh Gibril F. Haddad 253
II. Fatwa Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti 255
III. Select bibliography Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti 279
IV. Glossary of Arabic terms Shaykh Gibril F. Haddad 280
Index 285
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Preface
The Oxford Amnesty Lectures is a registered charity. Its purpose is to raise funds
for Amnesty International and to raise awareness of human rights in the academic
and wider communities. It is otherwise independent of Amnesty International. It
began as a fund-raising project for the Oxford Amnesty group and is now one of
the world’s leading lecture series. To date, Oxford Amnesty Lectures has raised over
£105,000 for Amnesty International.
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Acknowledgements
The lectures on which this book is based were given in Oxford in 2006. I should
like to thank the lecturers – Khaled Abou El Fadl, Joanna Bourke, Conor Gearty,
Jeff McMahan, Bat-Ami Bar On, Thomas Pogge and Ahdaf Soueif – for coming to
Oxford to speak and for giving us permission to publish their lectures in aid of Amnesty
International. I am also very grateful to Michael Byers for writing a contribution
without lecturing and to Afifi al-Akiti for permitting the inclusion of his fatwa and
Gibril F. Haddad for his introduction and taqrizand glossary to the fatwa and to
both for their assistance in stylistic revision. I should also like to express my grati-
tude to the respondents – Afifi al-Akiti, Elleke Boehmer, Thomas Dublin, Sandra
Fredman, H.A. Hellyer, Dino Kritsiotis, David Miller, Avner Offer and David
Rodin – for their contributions to this volume. All of the contributors have been
most generous in dealing with my queries, comments and editing; my contact with
them has been a pleasure and a privilege. My thanks also to Wes Williams, Kate
Tunstall and Nick Owen for reading and criticizing the introduction and to
Khaled Abou El Fadl and Cathryn Costello for expert advice. Remaining errors are
my own.
The organizing of the lectures was, as always, a collective venture. The mem-
bers of the organizing committee for OAL 2006 were Tim Chesters, Melissa
McCarthy, Chris Miller, Nick Owen, Fabienne Pagnier, Deana Rankin, Richard
Scholar, Stephen Shute, Kate Tunstall, Katrin Wehling and Wes Williams.
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Notes on contributors
KHALED ABOU EL FADL is Professor of Law and the Alfi Distinguished Chair in
Islamic Law at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law.
One of the world’s leading authorities on Islamic law, he won the 2007
University of Oslo Human Rights Award. Among his best known books are: The
Search for Beauty in Islam: A Conference of the Books (2006); The Great Theft:
Wrestling Islam from the Extremists(2005); and Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic
Law, Authority and Women (2001).
MUHAMMAD AFIFI AL-AKITI is a Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.
Trained in Muslim seminaries of the Far East with a long tradition in Shafi‘i
jurisprudence, he has recently completed his doctorate on a newly discovered
theological text of al-Ghazali.
ELLEKE BOEHMER is Professor of World Writing in English at Oxford University.
She is the author of Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial
Nation (2005), Nelson Mandela: Postcolonial Thinker (2008), and of four
novels including Nile Baby (2008).
JOANNABOURKEis Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London.
A distinguished social historian, she won the Fraenkel (1998) and Wolfson (2000)
Prizes for An Intimate History of Killing (1998).Her most recent book is Rape:
A History from 1860 to the Present (2007).
MICHAELBYERSholds the Canadian Research Chair in International Politics and Law
at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of the widely translated
War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict (2005) and
most recently of Intent for a Nation: What is Canada For? (2007).
THOMASDUBLINis Co-Director of the Center for Historical Study of Women and
Gender and the Center for the Teaching of American History at the State
University of New York, Binghamton. He is co-author with Walter Licht of The
Face of Decline (2005).
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x Notes on contributors
SANDRA FREDMAN is a Professor of Law at Oxford University. She is the author of
Human Rights Transformed: Positive Rights and Positive Duties(2008), Women
and the Law(1997) and Discrimination Law(2002). She has acted as expert adviser
to the E.U., Northern Ireland, the U.K. and Canada, and is a barrister practising
at Old Square Chambers.
CONOR GEARTY is Director of the Centre for Human Rights and Professor of
Human Rights Law at the London School of Economics. He is the author of
Can Human Rights Survive? (2006) and Civil Liberties (2007). He has appeared
in human rights cases in the House of Lords, the Court of Appeal and the High
Court.
Born in Beirut, DR. GIBRILFOUADHADDADembraced Islam as a graduate student at
Columbia University. He studied in Damascus 1997–2006 and now lives in Brunei.
His latest book is The Four Imams and Their Schools: Abu Hanifa, Malik, al-Shafi‘i,
Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
DR. H.A. HELLYER is Senior Research Fellow of the Centre for Research in Ethnic
Relations at Warwick University, a Member ofthe Oxford Centre for Islamic
Studies, and founding director of the Visionary Consultants Group. He is the
author of The European ‘Other’: Muslims and Multiculturalism(2009).
DINO KRITSIOTIS is Reader in Public International Law at the University of Not-
tingham and Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan Law School. He
serves on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Conflict & Security Lawand the
Human Rights Law Review.
JEFFMCMAHANis Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He is the author of
The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margin of Life (2002) and Killing in War
(2009).
DAVIDMILLERis Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He is the
author of many books, including Principles of Social Justice (1999) and most recently
National Responsibility and Global Justice (2007).
AVNEROFFERis Chichele Professor of Economic History, Oxford University, and a
Fellow of All Souls College. He is the author of many books, including the prize-
winning The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation (1989) and most
recently The Challenge of Affluence (2006).
BAT-AMI BAR ON is Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at Binghamton
University – SUNY. She is the author of The Subject of Violence (2002), a study
of the relation of violence to politics, and has edited several collections, notably
the Hypatia symposium on the ‘just war tradition’.
THOMASPOGGEis Professor of Philosophy at Yale and Professorial Fellow at ANU’s
Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. He is the author of World Poverty
and Human Rights (2002/8) and editor of Freedom from Poverty as a Human
Right (2007), Global Justice: Seminal Essays and Global Ethics: Seminal Essays
(both 2008).