Free Flesh: The Matrix, the War on Iraq and the Torture of Democracy

Technical Legality: Law, Technology and Science Fiction

Abstract: This thesis concerns the intersections of law and technology, referred to here as ‘technical legality’. It argues that reflection on technical legality reveals the mythic of modernity. The starting point for the argument is that the orthodox framing of technology by law – the ‘law and technology enterprise’ – does not comprehend its own speculative jurisdiction – that is, it fails to realise its oracle orientation towards imagining the future. In this science fiction as the modern West’s mythform, as the repository for projections of technological futures, is recognised as both the law and technology enterprise’s wellspring and cipher. What is offered in this thesis is a more thorough exploration of technical legality through taking science fiction seriously. This seriousness results in two implications for the understanding of technical legality. The first implication is that the anxieties and fantasies that animate the calling forth of law by technology become clearer. Science fiction operates as a window into the cultural milieu that frames law-making moments. In locating law-making events – specifically the making of the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 (Cth) and the Motor Car Act 1909 (Vic) – with the clone ‘canon’ in science fiction (specifically Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)) and H.G. Wells’ scientific romances, what is offered is a much richer understanding of how the cultural framing of technology becomes law than that provided by the ‘pragmatic’ positivism of the law and technology enterprise. The second implication arises from the excess that appears at the margins of the richer analyses. Exploring technical legality through science fiction does not remain within the epistemological frame. Each of the analyses gestures towards something essential about technical legality. The law and technology enterprise is grounded on the modern myth, which is also the myth of modernity – Frankenstein. It tells a story of monstrous technology, vulnerable humanity and saving law. The analyses of the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 (Cth) and the Motor Car Act 1909 (Vic) show that this narrative is terrorised, that the saving law turns out to be the monster in disguise; that the law called forth by technology is in itself technological. In extended readings of two critically acclaimed science fictions, Frank Herbert’s Dune cycle (1965–83) and the recent television series Battlestar Galactica (2003–10), the essential commitments of technological law are exposed. Dune as technical legality makes clear that technological law is truly monstrous, for behind its positivism and sovereignty its essence is with the alchemy of death and time. Battlestar Galactica as technical legality reduces further the alchemical properties of technical law. Battlestar Galactica moves the metaphysical highlight to the essence of technology and very nearly ends with Heidegger’s demise of Being in ‘Enframing’: monstrous technology and monstrous law reveal a humanity that cannot be saved. However, at the very moment of this fall, Battlestar Galactica collapses the metaphysical frame, affirming technological Being-in-the-world over empty ordering, life over death. This free responsibility to becoming that emerges from Battlestar Galactica reunites technical legality with the mythic of modernity. The modern denial of myth, which allowed Frankenstein to narrate technical legality, has been challenged. Free responsibility to becoming means a confidence with myths; it clears the way for the telling of new stories about law and technology.

Torture and terror post-9/11: The role of social work in responding to torture:

Abstract: Whilst terrorism is not a new global phenomenon, the fallout from the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US remain extensive and far reaching, including the sanctioning of harsher security measures and the denigration of human rights and civil liberties. Of particular concern is the move towards torture being an accepted practice for those deemed ‘terror suspects’ or captured ‘enemy’ combatants in countries where the so called ‘war on terror’ is still being played out. This article argues that the social work response, particularly in relation to challenging pro-torture rhetoric, has been limited at best, and to effectively address the problem there must be an international response if social work is to adhere to its obligations under the IFSW Code of Ethics, and fulfil its role as a human rights profession.

Contribution à l'étude des facteurs de non-respect du droit international humanitaire

Abstract: Le droit international humanitaire fait partie de ses rares branches du droit international qui beneficient d’une tres large adhesion de la part de la Communaute Internationale et de la societe civile. Les juridictions internationales, Cour Internationale de Justice et Tribunal Penal International, ainsi que la doctrine se sont accordes pour voir dans les regles du droit des conflits armes des normes dotees d’une valeur superieure aux normes ordinaires. Elles ont ainsi ete qualifiees d’obligations erga omnes, de principes intransgressibles du droit international et enfin de jus cogens ou normes imperatives. Il ne saurait y avoir de plus grande reconnaissance juridique au sein de l’ordre public international a ce jour. En sus, le droit international humanitaire apparait comme un des elements fondamentaux d’une morale internationale dans un monde globalise. Aux cotes des Etats et du CICR, la societe civile s’est emparee de la question de son respect et meme de son developpement et nombre d’organisations internationales travaillent en ce sens. On ne pourrait ainsi envisager une situation plus propice a son respect que cette unanime consecration juridique et sociale. Pourtant le droit international humanitaire est viole a chaque seconde qui passe. L’objet de cette these est de tenter de reflechir aux facteurs qui expliquent la recurrence de ces violations, qu’ils soient juridiques, anthropologiques ou sociologiques