Torture(d) policies of the war on terror: decoupling power from reason

Journal title SICUREZZA E SCIENZE SOCIALI
Author/s David Fagelson
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/2
Language English Pages 15 P. 96-110 File size 108 KB
DOI 10.3280/SISS2015-002007
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Many of the policies of the "War on Terror" have been controversial because of their possible violation of the law and redistribution of power amongst the different branches of government. In this article I show that the problem with these policies goes much deeper. By showing the necessary conceptual elements of law, I show that many of these policies, are not simply illegal but they fail to be law governed at all by any conception of law. This violates the foundations of American constitutionalism that subordinates every government action to the rule of law.

Keywords: Rule of law, war on terror, power, torture, reason

  1. Blackstone W., Chase G. (1929). William Blackstone Collection (Library of Congress). Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books. 4th ed. New York: Baker, Voorhis & Co.
  2. Dworkin R. (1977). Taking Rights Seriously. London: Duckworth.
  3. Fuller L.L. (1977). The Morality of Law. Storrs Lectures on Jurisprudence. Rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  4. Hamilton A., Madison J., Jay J., Goldman L. (2008). The Federalist Papers. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.
  5. Hayek, F.A. (1960). The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  6. Raz J. (2009). The Authority of Law: Essays on Law and Morality. 2nd ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. United States President, United States Congress. Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States from George Washington 1789 to George Bush 1989. Senate Document / 101st Congress, 1st Session. Bicentennial ed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. GPO: For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G O, 1989.
  7. Weber M., Gerth H.H., Mills C.W. (2009). From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Routledge Classics in Sociology. Oxford; New York: Routledge.

David Fagelson, Torture(d) policies of the war on terror: decoupling power from reason in "SICUREZZA E SCIENZE SOCIALI" 2/2015, pp 96-110, DOI: 10.3280/SISS2015-002007