Jurisprudences of jurisdiction: matters of public authority

Abstract

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Personhood, jurisdiction and injustice: law, colonialities and the global order

“…166 A closer examination of the specific issues over which jurisdictional powers are exercised reveals that the authorisation of law closely relates to the construction of law's purpose and imputed intention, 167 and it is this construction of purpose and its associated values that concerns us most for the purposes of our present argument. As was just noted, jurisdiction both inaugurates, shapes and expresses authority 168 and produces juridical and social identities. 169 This discursive 170 and inevitably material function is key to understanding the role played by jurisdictional practice in the production, definition, separation and exclusion of subjects and communities as targets of control.…”

“…Our engagement with jurisdiction and jurisdictional technique is predominantly theoretical as we aim to discern key patterns of law's construction of authority and control, selectively, over subjects and spatial realms. 158 Our interest lies in exposing links between patterns in the construction, delimitation and exercise of authority. We are not here concerned with taxonomic listings associated with doctrinal studies of jurisdiction, 159 but with the structural technologies and metaphysics of jurisdiction that in McVeigh's words 'articulate both the potentiality of law and the conditions of its exercise'.…”

“…Authority was not, however, in this context, always linked to sovereignty. 196 Indeed, public authority was historically often separate from the civil authority of the sovereign territorial state. 197 Mediaeval jurists' characterisation of authority, for example, drew distinctions between the Crown, the Church and the merchant jurisdictions, and delineated a map of power between different orders-each representing different layers of authority.…”

“…199 Public authority is accordingly perhaps better understood as a status-signifier pointing to an assemblage of different jurisdictional practices and devices and is not necessarily to be automatically understood as invoking 'sovereignty' or as dependent on or derivative from it. 200 Jurisdiction accordingly 'speaks' and mediates authority, even in cases where the authority in question is not sovereign.…”

Human Rights and Space: Reflections on the Implications of Human Activity in Outer Space on Human Rights Law

“…Jurisdiction is a technical means of establishing public authority, 142 including over humans and human rights. Therefore, considering jurisdictional practice in space is a means of gaining insight as to the nature of public authority over humans and human rights in space.…”