fdelondras

The Green Party’s Reproductive Rights Policy: An Appraisal

This is cross-posted from Human Rights in Ireland

The Green Party has released a reproductive rights policy in advance of the general election. The policy is very welcome, and is a further indication that reproductive justice is likely to be a central issue in the forthcoming election. The policy is especially interesting in that it speaks to a broad approach to reproductive rights, endorsing better maternity care and more choice in maternity and birthing options, and committing to access to safe and affordable contraception. This is a very welcome development. The publication of this policy also speaks to the Green Party’s decision to support repeal of the 8th Amendment by means of a referendum, although its support is given “on the condition that the Government have provided draft legislation which will be put in place if the referendum passes”. It is on this proposed law that I want to concentrate here. Continue reading “The Green Party’s Reproductive Rights Policy: An Appraisal”

New Conversation Post on ‘Jihadi John’ and Targeted Killing

This afternoon The Conversation published a column from me on targeted killing, arising from the news today that a US drone strike likely resulted in the death of Mohammed Emwazi. The column in full is here, and here’s the conclusion as a taster:

Legal debate serves another function here. Presenting targeted killing as something in relation to which there is at least an arguable legal justification enables political leaders to get out of answering harder, moral questions. By using technology to minimise the risk to “our” soldiers and “eliminate threats”, political leaders can avoid the moral and political pressure that comes from committing “boots on the ground” so that difficult questions may go unasked.

Of course, it is important for us to question the legality of what our governments do; to ensure that they remain within the law. But in the case of targeting killings there is a risk that the legal debate is so intense that the necessary moral debate does not take place.

Targeted killings such as this one are done in “our” name; to protect “our” security. And so, we must ask ourselves —- and our leaders —- these hard questions, and we must welcome rather than condemn interventions from politicians ([such as Jeremy Corbyn](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jihadi-john-dead-jeremy-corbyn-says-far-better-if-militant-had-been-in-tried-in-court-rather-than-a6733316.html)) who question the decision to kill rather than prosecute suspected terrorists.

As a democratically organised community operating under the rule of law, are we willing to accept the proposition that we can kill people (including our own citizens) abroad because of what we believe we know they did — or may do in the future? And, if so, can we accept the implications of this kind of prevention-oriented logic, legal or not?

‘Abandoning the Vanity of Lawyers’: Some Advice for New Law PhDs

I was very pleased yesterday to go to Cambridge and give the first of a new series of lectures to PhD students in Anglia Ruskin University. Over the year, the lecture series will bring a number of scholars to the University to speak to PhD students about particular research topics, ideally tailored for the audience. As the inaugural speaker in the series I had plenty of liberty in how I approached it, and so I thought I would reflect on the ten years of my research career (since I started my PhD in 2005). In doing so, I realised that a key lesson I have learned is that there is value in abandoning the vanity of lawyers: law is not always the answer. What I mean by that is a narrow field of enquiry that focuses only on doctrinal law without taking into account the context in which it operates and perspectives from cognate disciplines that will help us to understand the content, (in)adequacies and operation of law (e.g. political science, international relations, sociology, philosophy/political theory, and psychology) can be limited and limiting. Continue reading “‘Abandoning the Vanity of Lawyers’: Some Advice for New Law PhDs”

Antwerp Lecture: Evaluation and Effectiveness of Counter-Terrorism

This week I am at the beautiful Universitair Centrum Sint-Ignatius Antwerpen (part of the Quad at night pictured left) for an excellent and challenging workshop on Socially Responsible Innovation in Security. I have been asked to present one of the four framing lectures, mine on evaluation and effectiveness. Although the lecture builds on findings and thoughts that began to develop during my FP7 project SECILE (results reports in this book from Routledge), it is not a typical ‘scientific’ lecture inasmuch as I do not focus on presenting concrete results. Rather, in this lecture I make an argument from principle on the importance of ex post facto effectiveness review and the inadequacy of ex ante impact assessments no matter how well designed. The full text of the lecture, which will be developed into a chapter for the Centre’s annual publication, is here. The introduction gives a flavour.

In the past 14 years there has been an enormous expansion of counter-terrorism laws and policies at national, regional and international levels. Spurred on by the events of 9/11 and, later, the phenomenon of ‘foreign terrorist fighters’, states and international institutions have introduced laws and policies that encroach greatly on fundamental freedoms and human rights (at times in ways that undermine the democratic process), and the international conception of the ‘rule of law’ has been ‘securitised’ to a striking degree. These measures include measures to permit, require, and fund technologically innovative approaches to counter-terrorism: surveillance, smart borders and so on. While these measures raise particular questions flowing from the technologies applied, this paper take a step back from the specifics of technology innovation in security to address a matter of structural, ethical and deliberative concern across the field of security: effectiveness.

Evaluation of whether counter-terrorist measures—including those using innovative technologies—are, in fact, effective is worryingly inadequate or, in many cases, simply non-existent. In this lecture, I will outline the expansion in counter-terrorism and its impact for human rights, democracy and the Rule of Law in order to argue that evaluation of effectiveness is key in maintaining the legitimacy of the counter-terrorist state and supra-state. Having done that, I will explore what the notion of ‘effectiveness’ means in this context, identifying both meta- and specific objectives as critical sites of analysis. Based on this, the paper will argue for the implementation of critical, reflexive and comprehensive ex post facto effectiveness evaluation of counter-terrorist measures and evaluation.