1. Necropolitical law; 2. Necropolitical law's planetary jurisdiction: the USA P.A.T.R.I.O.T act; 3. Necropolitical law remakes justice; 4. The killing of al-Baghdadi; 5. Necropolitical law, necropolitical culture: Eye in the Sky; 6. The mother of all bombs; 7. Necropolitical law and endless war.
Demonstrates necropolitical law's cultural disseminations to show how, for Americans and the world, life is discounted, undermining rule of law.
Committed to excavating rule-of-law violations, Jothie Rajah analyses law in context. She is Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation. Discounting Life shows how war-on-terror legality relies on ostensibly non-legal productions – images, narrative, and affect – to legitimize state violence. Authoritarian Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press, 2012) shows how Singapore's narrative of national vulnerability combines with authoritarian politics to undermine rule-of-law ideals.
'Discounting Life reveals the consequential weight of visual
representation in the strategic discourses of counterterrorism
after 9/11. Drawing on law, humanities and social science to probe
key episodes in the War on Terror, Dr. Rajah examines the
normalization of a complex politics of death with nuanced insight
and originality.' Carol J. Greenhouse, Arthur W. Marks '19
Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University
'This extraordinary account of necropolitical law, forged in the
heartlands of US colonialism, imperialism and slavery, and
reanimated in the long War on Terror that begins well before 9/11,
provides a new lens through which to analyze law's capacities to
authorize the value of certain lives over others. A close reading
of texts, images, and events unveils the mutually constitutive
histories of racial violence and liberal legality that is both
chilling and revelatory.' Eve Darian-Smith, Professor of Global and
International Studies, University of California, Irivine and author
of Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis
'In Discounting Life, Jothie Rajah argues that the cultural and
media framing of the 'long War on Terror' as the vanquishing of
irrational, extraordinary, and exceptional enemies has led to the
extension of US sovereignty to a planetary scale. Through an
extension its 'necropolitical law,' Rajah argues that the U.S.
justifies its right to determine who may live and die not as an
exception to legality but squarely in the context of its
necropolitical legal calculus. A smart, well-researched, and
powerful analysis of law's role in the long War on Terror,
Discounting Life is necessary reading.' Alex Lubin, Professor of
African American Studies, The Pennsylvania State University
'An astute investigation of state-sponsored killing under the
banner of the War on Terror. Rajah shows the life-and-death stakes
of modern state sovereignty. This gripping book brings the
discounted lives of millions killed in the War on Terror back into
the conversation about law, sovereignty, state power, and the
exception. It is superb.' Ian Hurd, Professor of Political Science
and the Director of the Weinberg College Center for International
and Area Studies at Northwestern University
'This is a phenomenal work of scholarship. Through masterful and
deeply original readings of law as expressed in photos, film,
texts, and events, Jothie Rajah uncovers the coded law underlying
the violence the US has unleashed around the world during its long
War on Terror. Rigorous, erudite, and deeply creative, Discounting
Life is a truly stunning book.' Leti Volpp, Robert D. and Leslie
Kay Raven Professor of Law, UC Berkeley
'Rajah offers an incisive understanding of the interplay between
legal texts and non-legal discourses that runs counter to
predominant understandings of exceptionality.' Samarjit Ghosh,
International Affairs
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