Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Sovereign impunity in America’s war on terror: examining reconfigured power and the absence of accountability

  • Published:
Crime, Law and Social Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Significant socio-legal transformations since September 11th have attracted scholarly investigations in pursuit of identifying the precise nature of a newly configured form of power. In the course of suspending law, the US government has instituted controversial tactics in the war on terror, many of which are deemed illegal under international law (i.e., the unlawful enemy combatant designation, torture, and the war in Iraq). This work attends to recent analyses on sovereignty, governmentality, counter-law, and states of exception in an effort to elaborate on state impunity since it is regarded as an important phenomenon warranting greater exploration. Due to an absence of accountability that would otherwise hold specific government actors responsible, key counter-terrorism strategies perpetuate serious state crimes. The article situates those transgressions within a conceptual context that deepens our understanding of power in a post-9/11 world while inviting further critique on the war on terror as it undermines the rule of law and established human rights protections.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Ericson [29] distinguishes between two fundamental forms of counter-law. First is counter-law I known as laws against law and second is counter-law II or surveillant assemblages. Throughout this paper, the term counter-law refers to the first form, laws against law.

  2. “Military order on detention, treatment and the trial of certain non-citizens in the war on terrorism,” 66 Federal Register 57831, 2001.

  3. “Procedures for trials by military commissions of certain non-US citizens in the war on terror against terror,” Department of Defense Military Commission Order No. 1, March 21, 2002.

  4. P.L. 107-40 Sec.2(a), September 18, 2001.

  5. One of more breathtaking moments underscoring the emergence of a newly configured power occurred in 2004. At the time, Federal judge Joyce Hens Green was still interested in scanning the limits of presidential power to detain enemy combatants and whether the White House satisfied the requirement laid out in the June (2004) US Supreme Court decision to provide a justification for their detention acceptable to federal courts. She posed a hypothetical case to Brian Boyle, a Justice Department lawyer: Could the president of the United States imprison “a little old lady from Switzerland” as an enemy combatant if she donated to a charity not knowing that her money was eventually used to finance the activities of Al Qaeda terrorists? After a long pause, Boyle responded: “Possibly”([66], p. A36). Boyle then went on to rationalize that the enemy combatant definition “is not limited to someone who carries a weapon.” Especially given the global reach of the enemy combatant definition, Green pressed Boyle about the temporal scope of the war on terror and the application of the powers under the enemy combatant order: “When will they end?” To which Boyle conceded: “I wish I could give you an answer” ([66], p. A36).

  6. Efforts by the White House to sidestep its obligations under the Convention Against Torture, in addition to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICCPR ratified in 1992 and key federal statutes that prohibit torture, worry the human rights community. Compounding matters, several government officials have publicly revealed that they endorse interrogation tactics that reside in the ambit of torture. While being questioned by the Senate, Porter J. Goss, director of the CIA, was confronted by Senator John McCain (AZ, R) who spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. When McCain asked Goss about the CIA’s reported use of “waterboarding,” in which a prisoner is made to believe that he will drown, Goss replied only that the approach fell into “an area of what I will call professional interrogation techniques” ([52], p. A11).

  7. With an expansionist ambition, known as manifest destiny, the US participated in the slave industry, expropriated land from indigenous Americans, and devised the Monroe Doctrine by declaring North and South America as an exclusive American region of the globe. Wars with Mexico and later Spain furthered American borders and established several colonies in the Philippines, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Given the relative youthfulness of the US as a nation, there is considerable evidence that it has had – and continues to have – a unique imperial streak ([31], see [6]).

  8. While maintaining its status as a superpower since WW II, the US became truly hegemonic at the end of the Cold War when the Soviet Union collapsed along with its own brand of imperialism. That historical moment gave rise to the US as an unrivaled hyperpower, producing an era in which American military would operate with relative impunity as evidenced by the quick invasions of Panama and Grenada. Both of those military interventions served as virtual tune-ups for the first Gulf War. Still, there emerged a political contest over how to capitalize on the opportunities delivered by the decline of the Soviet Union. On one side of the debate are the global friendly internationalists typified in the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; on the other are the neo-conservatives known for their fiercely nationalist, unilateralist, and militarist versions of American Open Door imperialism. “It was this latter group that would, surprisingly, find itself in a position to shape America’s imperial project for the 21st century” ([61], p. 456).

References

  1. Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Translated by Daniel Heller-Roaxen. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Agamben, G. (2005). State of exception. Translated by Kevin Attell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Amnesty International (2005). Guantanamo and beyond: The continuing pursuit of unchecked executive power. New York: Amnesty International.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Amoore, L., & De Goede, M. (2005). Governance, risk and dataveillance in the war on terror. Crime, Law and Social Change, 43, 149–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Armstrong, D. (2002). Dick Cheney’s song for America: Drafting a plan for global dominance. Harper’s Magazine, 76–83, October.

  6. Aronowitz, S., & Gautney H. (2003). Implicating empire: Globalization and resistance in the 21st century world order. New York Basic Books.

  7. Ashworth, A. (2000). Is the criminal law a lost cause? Law Quarterly Review, 116, 225–256.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Ashworth, A. (2003). Principles of criminal law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Ashworth, A. (2004). Social control and ‘anti-social behaviour’: The subversion of human rights? Law Quarterly Review, 120, 263–291.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Beck, U., Giddens, A., & Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive modernity: Politics, tradition, and aesthetics in the modern social order. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Brown, W. (2005).The governmentality of tolerance. In: W. Brown (Ed.) Regulating aversion: A critique of tolerance in the age of identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Campbell, C., & Connolly I. (2006). Making war on terror? Global lessons from Northern Ireland. Modern Law Review, 69(6), 935–957.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Chambliss, W. (1989). State-organized crime. Criminology, 27(2), 183–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Cheney, R. (2005). The sleeper scenario: Terrorism – support laws and the demands of prevention. Harvard Review of Legislation, 42, 1–90.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Chomsky, N. (2002). The world after September 11 (2001). In: N. Chomsky (Ed.), Pirates and emperors, old and new (p. 144–159). London: Pluto.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Chomsky, N. (2003). Hegemony or survival: America’s quest for global dominance. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Clarke, R. (2004). Against all enemies: Inside America’s war on terror. New York: Simon and Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Cohen, S. (1995). State crimes of previous regimes: Knowledge, accountability, and the policing of the past. Law and Social Inquiry, 20, 7–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Cohen, S. (2001). States of denial: Knowing about atrocities and suffering. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Cohen, S. (2006). Neither honesty nor hypocrisy: The legal reconstruction of torture. In: T. Newburn & P. Rock (Eds.), Politics of crime control: Essays in honour of David Downes (pp. 297–317). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Cole, D. (2003). Enemy aliens: Double standards and constitutional freedoms in the war on terror. New York: The New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Crawford, A. (2003). ‘Contractual governance’ of deviant behavior. Journal of Law and Society, 30, 479–505.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Croft, S. (2006). Culture, crisis and America’s war on terror. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Danner, M. (2004). Torture and truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the war on terror. London: Granta Books.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Dershowitz, A. (2002). Why terrorism works. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Dratel, J. (2005). The legal narrative. In: K. Greenberg & J. Dratel (Eds.), The torture papers: The road to Abu Ghraib (pp. xxi–xxiii). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Ericson, R. V. (2007). Crime in an insecure world. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Ericson, R. V., & Haggerty, K. (1997). Policing the risk society. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Ferguson, N. (2005). Colossus: The rise and fall of the American empire. New York: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In: G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 87–104). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Friedrichs, D. (1998). State crime: Volumes I and II. Aldershot, UK: Aldershot/Dartmouth.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Garrison, J. (2004). America as Empire: Global leader or rogue power? San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Gilroy, P. (2002). Raise your eyes. http://www.opendemocracy.net. September 11.

  38. Gilroy, P. (2003). ‘Where ignorant armies clash by night’: Homogeneous community and the planetary aspect. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 6, 261–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Greenberg, K. J., & Dratel, J. L. (2005). The torture papers: The road to Abu Ghraib. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Gregory, D. (2004). The colonial present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Greider, W. (2003). Occupiers and the law. Nation, 5–6, November 17.

  42. Harbury, J. (2005). Truth, torture, and the American way: The history and consequences of U.S. involvement in torture. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Hersh, S. M. (2004). Chain of command: The road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. New York: Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Human Rights Watch (2004). Guantanamo: Detainee accounts. New York: Human Rights Watch.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Human Rights Watch (2005). Guantanamo: Three years of lawlessness. New York: Human Rights Watch.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Human Rights Watch (2006a). Q and A: Military Commissions Act of 2006. New York: Human Rights Watch.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Human Rights Watch (2006b). Human rights watch world report 2006: U.S. policy of abuse undermines rights worldwide. New York: Human Rights Watch.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Human Rights Watch (2007). US mark five years of Guantanamo by closing it: Congress should restore detainees’ access to courts. New York: Human Rights Watch.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Ignatieff, M. (2004). The lesser evil: Political ethics in an age of terror. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Janus, I. L. (1982). Groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Jehl, D. (2005). Questions left by C.I.A. chief on torture use: Goss vouches only for current practices. New York Times, A1, A11, March 18.

  53. Jinks, D., & Sloss, D. (2004). Is the president bound by the Geneva Conventions? Cornell Law Review, 90, 97–202.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Juhasz, A. (2004). Ambitions of empire: The Bush administration economic plan for Iraq (and beyond). LeftTurn Magazine, January 20.

  55. Kacprowski, N. (2004). ‘Stacking the deck’ against suspected terrorists. Seattle University Law Review, 26, 651–697.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Kafka, F. (1999). The trial. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Katyal, N., & Tribe, L. H. (2002). Waging war, deciding guilt: Trying the military tribunals. Yale Law Journal, 111, 1259–1310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Kauzlarich, D., Matthews, R., & Miller, W. J. (2001). Toward a victimology of state crime. Critical Criminology, 10, 173–194.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Klein, N. (2003). Bring Halliburton home. Nation, 10, November 24.

  60. Knowlton, B. (2005). Poll shows modest changes in levels of anti-U.S. Mood. International Herald Tribune, EV1–3, June 24.

  61. Kramer, R. C., & Michalowski, R. J. (2005). War, aggression and state crime: A criminological analysis of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. British Journal of Criminology, 45, 446–469.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Kramer, R. C., Michalowski, R. J., & Kauzlarich, D. (2002). The origins and development of the concept and theory of state–corporate crime. Crime & Delinquency, 48(2), 263–282.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Kramer, R. C., Michalowski, R. J., & Rothe, D. (2005). ‘The supreme international crime’: How the U.S. war in Iraq threatens the rule of law. Social Justice, 32(2), 52–81.

    Google Scholar 

  64. Levi, M., & Wall, D. S. (2004). Technologies, security, and privacy in the post-9/11 European information society. Journal of Law and Society, 31(2), 194–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Lewis, A. (2005). Introduction. In: K. Greenberg & J. Dratel (Eds.) The torture papers: The road to Abu Ghraib (pp. xiii–xvi). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  66. Lewis, N. A. (2004). Fate of Guantanamo Bay detainees is debated in federal court. New York Times, A36, December 2.

  67. Lind, E., Nightengale, K., Schmitt, J. F., Sutton, J. W., & Wilson, J. I. (1989). The changing face of war: Into the fourth generation. Marine Corps Gazette, 22–26, October.

  68. Margulies, P. (2004). Judging terror in the ‘zone of twilight’. Boston University Law Review, 84, 383–443.

    Google Scholar 

  69. McCoy, A. W. (2006). A question of torture: CIA interrogation, from the cold war to the war on terror. New York: Metropolitan Books.

    Google Scholar 

  70. Merkin, D. (2004). Terror-filled: Preparing for the worst by never ceasing to think about it. New York Times Magazine, 13–14, August 15.

  71. Mythen, G., & Walklate, S. (2006). Criminology and terrorism: Which thesis? risk society or governmentality. British Journal of Criminology, 46, 379–389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. New York Times (2005). Mr. Cheney’s imperial presidency, A26, December 23.

  73. Newburn, T. (2007). “Governing military security.” In: C. Chinkin, D. Downes, C. Gearty, & P. Rock (Eds.), Sociology and politics of denial: Crime, social control and human rights – essays in honour of Stanley Cohen. Cullumpton, Devon (UK): Willan Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Normand, R. (2004). Presentation on the crimes committed during the ongoing occupation. World Tribunal on Iraq. New York, May 8. http://worldtribunal-nyc.org/document/index.htm.

  75. O’Malley, P. (2004). Risk, uncertainty and government. London: Glasshouse.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Parenti, C. (2004). The freedom: Shadows and hallucinations in occupied Iraq. New York: The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  77. Paust, J. (2005). Executive plans and authorizations to violate international law concerning treatment and interrogation of detainees. Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 43, 812–863.

    Google Scholar 

  78. Pious, R. M. (2006). The war on terrorism and the rule of law. Los Angeles: Roxbury.

    Google Scholar 

  79. Rose, D. (2004). Guantanamo: America’s war on human rights. London: Faber and Faber.

    Google Scholar 

  80. Ross, J. I. (2000). Controlling state crime: An introduction, (2nd edition). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

    Google Scholar 

  81. Scheuer, M. (2004). Imperial hubris: Why the west is losing the war on terror. Washington, DC: Brassey’s.

    Google Scholar 

  82. Schmitt, C. (1985). Political theology: Four chapters on the concept of sovereignty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  83. Singer, P. W. (2005). Outsoucing war. Foreign Affairs, 119–133, March/April.

  84. Soros, G. (2004). The bubble of American supremacy: Correcting the misuse of American power. New York: Public Affairs.

    Google Scholar 

  85. Steel, R. (2004). Fight fire with fire: In the war on terror, Michael Ignatieff argues, draconian methods may well be justified. New York Times Book Review, 13, July 25.

    Google Scholar 

  86. Stenson, K. (2003). The new politics of crime control. In: K. Stenson & R. Sullivan (Eds.), Crime, risk and justice. Devon: Willan.

    Google Scholar 

  87. Stolberg, S. G. (2006). Bush signs new rules to prosecute terror suspects. New York Times, E1-2, October 18.

  88. Suskind, R. (2004). The price of loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the education of Paul O’Neill. New York: Simon and Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  89. Swanson, S. (2004). Enemy combatants and the writ of habeas corpus. Arizona State Law Journal, 35, 939–1022.

    Google Scholar 

  90. Sykes, G. M., & Matza, D. (1967). Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency. American Sociological Review, 22, 664–670.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  91. Taylor, C. (2004). Modern social imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  92. Welch, M. (2003). Trampling of human rights in the war on terror: Implications to the sociology of denial. Critical Criminology: An International Journal, 12(1), 1–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  93. Welch, M. (2005). Los delitos del estado en la guerra estadounidense contra el terror: Una mirada a la cultura de la impunidad (State crimes in America’s war on terror: Examining a culture of impunity). Capitulo Criminologico: Revista de las Disciplinas del Control Social (Venezuela), 33(4), 22–43.

    Google Scholar 

  94. Welch, M. (2006a). Scapegoats of September 11th: Hate crimes and state crimes in the war on terror. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  95. Welch, M. (2006b). Seeking a safer society: America’s anxiety in the war on terror. Security Journal, 19(2), 93–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  96. Welch, M. (2007). Control social Foucaultiano en el mundo Post 9/11: Desarrollos recientes a través de fronteras sociales y culturales (Foucauldian social control in a post-9/11 world: Recent developments across social and cultural boundaries), Revista CENIPEC (Centro de Investigaciones Penales y Criminologicas Universidad de Los Andes Facultad de Ciencias Juridas y Politicas, Venezuela), 26, In Press.

  97. Welch, M. (2008). Militarizing power in the war on terror: Unlawful enemy combatants and the Military Commissions Act. In: R. Haveman & A. Smeulers (Eds.), Towards a criminology of international crimes. Antwerp (Belgium): Intersentia.

    Google Scholar 

  98. Whyte, D. (2007). The crimes of neo-liberal rule in occupied Iraq. British Journal of Criminology, 47(2), 177–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  99. Williams, W. A. (1969). The roots of the modern American empire. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  100. Williams, W. A. (1988). The tragedy of American diplomacy. New York: Norton Paperback Edition.

    Google Scholar 

  101. Woodward, B. (2004). Plan of attack. New York: Simon and Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  102. Young, J. (2003). In praise of dangerous thoughts. Punishment & Society, 5, 97–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Cases

  1. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004). 542, U.S. 507.

  2. Rasul v. Bush and United States (2004). 542, U.S. 466.

Download references

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Deans Arnold Hyndman, Holly Smith, Ed Rhodes, and Allan Horwitz and the Rutgers University sabbatical program for providing the opportunity complete this work. Likewise, I acknowledge my colleagues at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics, particularly Conor Gearty and Stan Cohen, for their support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 08854, USA

    Michael Welch

  2. Centre for the Study of Human Rights, London School of Economics, London, UK

    Michael Welch

Authors
  1. Michael Welch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Welch.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Welch, M. Sovereign impunity in America’s war on terror: examining reconfigured power and the absence of accountability. Crime Law Soc Change 47, 135–150 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-007-9067-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-007-9067-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation