CRIMINOLOGY

Criminology

Criminology

Criminology and International Relations (IR) share a relatively wide vocabulary: political violence, crime, security, deterrence, war on terror, risk, human rights and freedom. Particularly in the case of the 'war on terror', similar concerns and conceptual tools have increasingly surfaced on both sides. Nonetheless, one debate—namely Carl Schmitt's theory of the exception and its uptake in IR—has travelled less well. This article argues that there is value in engaging with the IR debates on the exception. From the perspective of IR, the exception makes possible different insights about the dialectics between law and crime by unpacking the constitutive role of the politics of fear, the importance of the 'international' and the transformed relationship to the future. It also exposes the deteriorating effects of the 'war on terror' on justice, democracy and social transformation.

The War on Terror (also known as the Global War on Terror or the War on Terrorism) is the campaign launched by the United States of America, under the Presidency of George W. Bush, with the support of the United Kingdom, NATO and other countries. The campaign was launched in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks and had the stated objective of eliminating international terrorism.( Arrigo, 1999 25)

The phrase War on Terror was used frequently by former US President George W. Bush and other high-ranking US officials to denote a global military, political, legal and ideological struggle against organizations designated as terrorist and regimes that were accused of having a connection to them or providing them with support or were perceived or presented as posing a threat to the US and its allies in general. It was typically used with a particular focus on militant Islamists and al-Qaeda.

The administration of President Barack Obama has discontinued use of the term "War on Terror" and instead uses the term "Overseas Contingency Operation". However, President Obama has stated that the US is at war with al-Qaeda.

Both the term and the policies it denotes have been a source of ongoing controversy, as critics argue it has been used to justify unilateral preventive war, human rights abuses and other violations of international law.( Becker, 2003 241)

In May 1996 the group World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (WIFJAJC), sponsored by Osama Bin Laden and later reformed as al-Qaeda, started forming a large base of operations in Afghanistan, where the Islamist extremist regime of the Taliban had seized power that same year.

Following the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, U.S. President Bill Clinton launched Operation Infinite Reach, a bombing campaign in Sudan and Afghanistan against targets the US asserted were associated with WIFJAJC, although others have questioned whether a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was used as a chemical warfare plant. The plant produced much of the region's antimalarial drugs and around 50% of Sudan's pharmaceutical needs. The strikes failed to kill any leaders of WIFJAJC or the Taliban.

Next came the 2000 millennium attack plots which included an attempted bombing of Los Angeles International ...