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7 - Uncanny Law

from Part II - The Stakes for Law: Between Compositional Articulation and the Articulation of Injustice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2022

Isobel Roele
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
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Summary

This chapter uses Freud’s understanding of the uncanny to interrogate the ambivalent relationship between managerial governance and juridico-political government. It suggests that managerial infra-law can appear uncanny from an international legal perspective: it looks like law, it sounds like law, but its documents, statements, speeches, and dialogues are empty words and dead letters. Infra-law is uncanny because it is inarticulate. The chapter refrains from using this insight to nostalgically affirm juridico-political government. On the contrary, international lawyers’ attempts to abject management (in Julia Kristeva’s sense) are symptomatic of deeply rooted problems within juridico-political systems. The chapter argues that juridical authority stifles law’s responsiveness and ability to articulate grievances against the status quo. The chapter uses this insight to argue for a version of legal advocacy capable of articulating complaints against the injustices of security measures. The force of law, on this model, derives not from its own authority but from the anger generated by injustice. Law can shift its horizon of responsiveness, the discussion concludes, by learning to listen to those whose security is sacrificed to collective security, and to articulate their complaints.

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Chapter
Information
Articulating Security
The United Nations and its Infra-Law
, pp. 189 - 223
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Uncanny Law
  • Isobel Roele, Queen Mary University of London
  • Book: Articulating Security
  • Online publication: 03 March 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316856468.007
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  • Uncanny Law
  • Isobel Roele, Queen Mary University of London
  • Book: Articulating Security
  • Online publication: 03 March 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316856468.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Uncanny Law
  • Isobel Roele, Queen Mary University of London
  • Book: Articulating Security
  • Online publication: 03 March 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316856468.007
Available formats
×