Terror, Law and War

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2010:

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements of this entry.

This subject considers and compares the response to terrorism around the world in the form of legal initiatives, instigations of war, and the implementation of practices of rendition, arbitrary detention and torture. These have been argued to contravene due process and the presumption of innocence, and contribute to civil and global unrest, sometimes inspiring criminal action and creating new categories of what it means to be criminal. The subject draws upon the conceptual and analytical tools of criminological and socio-legal examination including the political, social and legal construction of terror and terrorism. The inspiration for the anti-terrorism initiatives and the conflicting arguments about their necessity, will be examined together with the (side) effects they have created. It will look at examples such as the Iraq war, the US PATRIOT Act and the anti-terrorism laws in Australia, the US and England.

• To analyse the current climate of anti-terror.
• To critically consider arguments for and against anti-terror initiatives.
• To explore the use of anti-terrorism laws, pre-emptive war and practices of torture and rendition.
• To consider the effects of torture and anti-terror initiatives on contemporary society.

A Subject Reader will be available for purchase from the University Bookshop.

• Williams, George and Lynch, Andrew, What Price Security? Taking Stock of Australia&amp.rsquo.s Anti-Terror Laws (UNSW Press, 2006) 1-95.
• Simpson, Gerry, War, Law and Crime: War Crimes, Trials and the Reinvention of International Law, Cambridge. Polity Press, 2007.
• Zizek, Slavoj, Iraq and the Borrowed Kettle, Verso Books, New York, 2004.
• Burnside, Julian &amp.lsquo.The New Terror: Gunpowder Plot to Guantanamo&amp.rsquo. Australian Feminist Law Journal, vol 24, June 2006 pp 23-38.
• Butler, Judith Precarious Life: the Powers of Mourning and Violence, London, Verso, 2003.Scarry, Elaine Body in Pain: the making and unmaking of the world, New York, Oxford, 1985.
• Derrida, Jacques Rogues: Two Essays on Reason (trans) Pascale-anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford University Press: California, 2005.
• Foucault, Michel Discipline and Punish: the birth of the Prison (trans) Alan Sheridan, New York, Pantheon, 1977.
• Said, Edward, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient New York, Penguin Books, 1978.
• Pugliese, Joseph &amp.lsquo.Necro-ethics of terrorism&amp.rsquo. Public Culture (forthcoming).

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

• have highly developed cognitive, analytical and problem-solving skills.
• have an advanced understanding of complex concepts and the ability to express them lucidly in writing and orally.
• have sophisticated awareness of cultural, ethnic and gender diversities and their implications.
• have an ability to plan work and to use time effectively.