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

Abstract

Human shields were prominent in the 2016 military campaign seeking to recapture Mosul from the hands of ISIS militants. On October 24, 2016, Pope Francis expressed his concern over the use of over two hundred boys and men as human shields in the Iraqi city. In an election rally the following day, Donald Trump decried the enemy's use of “human shields all over the place,” while the New York Times reported that the Islamic State is driving hundreds of civilians into Mosul, using them as human shields. A few days later, the United Nations disseminated a press release, warning that ISIS militants are using “tens of thousands” as human shields, thus casting massive numbers of Iraqi civilians as weapons of war.

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

“…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.…”

“…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.…”

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

“…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.…”

“…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.…”

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

“…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.…”

“…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.…”

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

“…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.…”

“…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.…”