Human Shields, Sovereign Power, and the Evisceration of the
               Civilian

Perugini, Nicola; Gordon, Neve

doi:10.1017/aju.2016.7

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Consequently, the framing carried out by the apparatus of distinction should not be understood, as Judith Butler (, ) reminds us, as the neutral description or a belated neutral arbiter of a conflict that has already taken place but as a mechanism that selectively carves up “experience as essential to the conduct of war”. The claim, for example, that ISIS is using tens of thousands of human shields in Mosul not only frames the Iraqi civilians of this city as shields and ISIS as the actor responsible for their lives, but the invocation of this legal figure even before the fighting began also served to legitimate in advance the repertoires of violence that the militaries attacking Mosul can use (Gordon and Perugini ). Finally, this apparatus, we maintain, following Bruce Braun's (:14) claim about the operations of biosecurity, has been instituted in order to expand the possibility of preemptive violence and preemptive legal defense “in ways that extend forms of sovereign power” to completely news spaces.…”

Section: The Apparatus Of Distinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this context, human shields serve as a particularly illuminating case for our investigation of the way that violence is interpreted as ethical because they represent a relatively ambiguous figure within international law. As we demonstrate below, the human shield is by definition a civilian whose status as a civilian is simultaneously assumed only to be disavowed (Gordon and Perugini ). This disavowing does not transform the shield into a combatant, but rather converts him/her into a liminal being.…”

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Distinction and the Ethics of Violence: On the Legal Construction of Liminal Subjects and Spaces

Perugini

Gordon

2017

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This paper interrogates the relationship among visibility, distinction, international humanitarian law and ethics in contemporary theatres of violence. After introducing the notions of “civilianization of armed conflict” and “battlespaces”, we briefly discuss the evisceration of one of international humanitarian law's axiomatic figures: the civilian. We show how liberal militaries have created an apparatus of distinction that expands that which is perceptible by subjecting big data to algorithmic analysis, combining the traditional humanist lens with a post‐humanist one. The apparatus functions before, during, and after the fray not only as an operational technology that directs the fighting or as a discursive mechanism responsible for producing the legal and ethical interpretation of hostilities, but also as a force that produces liminal subjects. Focusing on two legal figures—“enemies killed in action” and “human shields”—we show how the apparatus helps justify killing civilians and targeting civilian spaces during war.

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Section: The Apparatus Of Distinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Distinction and the Ethics of Violence: On the Legal Construction of Liminal Subjects and Spaces

Perugini

Gordon

2017

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Introduction to Symposium on Critical Perspectives on Human Shields

Perugini

Gordon

2016

AJIL Unbound

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This symposium is dedicated to the legal challenges posed by human shielding, a growing phenomenon intricately linked to the increasing "weaponization" of human bodies in contemporary warfare. 1 Human shielding refers to the deployment of civilians in order to deter attacks on combatants or military sites as well as their transformation into a technology of warfare. The dramatic increase of urban warfare has meant that civilians inevitably occupy the front lines, blurring the distinction between civilians and combatants. This, in turn, raises serious ethical and legal dilemmas relating to the use of violence. From Gaza City through Mosul in Iraq to Sri Lanka, accusations that combatants are using human shields as an instrument of protection, coercion, or deterrence have multiplied in the past few of years.The word shield, in relation to human shield issues, first appears in the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. Article 51(7) both prohibits the use of human shields and reiterates that it is legitimate for militaries to attack areas protected by human shields, provided that they abide by the principles of proportionality and military necessity.The presence or movement of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favor or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations. 2

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Military techno-vision: Technologies between visual ambiguity and the desire for security facts

Andersen

2019

Eur j.of int. secur.

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Military applications of technologies for enhancing or producing vision play a key role in composing contemporary security, as such technologies are deployed to make security sense of everyday sociality, of battlefields, and of much in between these extremes. In this article, I set out to recompose militarised techno-vision through the public detritus left by its heterogenous development, use, and appropriation. I argue that as an heterogenous and amalgamated object, military techno-vision can be composed by speaking the stories of its leftovers, and that this composition is characterised by and in turn characterises a longstanding dilemma between fact and vision – between the ambiguity that is constitutive of the human practices of visual perception and image-making, and the desire for machines that can produce visual ‘actionable intelligence’ that can underpin security decisions. Discourses, practices, and regimes of visibility are deployed alongside technologies to occlude the ambiguity of technological vision and sustain the imaginary of technologically altered vision as neutral production of military or security facts.

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Human Shields, Sovereign Power, and the Evisceration of the Civilian

Cited by 5 publications

References 2 publications

Distinction and the Ethics of Violence: On the Legal Construction of Liminal Subjects and Spaces

Distinction and the Ethics of Violence: On the Legal Construction of Liminal Subjects and Spaces

Introduction to Symposium on Critical Perspectives on Human Shields

Military techno-vision: Technologies between visual ambiguity and the desire for security facts

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