I am a professor of sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara. My scholarship focuses on international law, war and conflict, human rights, torture, and targeted killing. I am the author of Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza (University of California Press, 2005) and Torture: A Sociology of Violence and Human Rights (Routledge, 2013). I am a co-editor of Jadaliyya. Currently, I am working on two new books: The War in Court: The Legal Campaign against US Torture in the “War on Terror” and another that focuses on human rights in the Arab world.
A groundbreaking exploration of the philosophy underpinning Western humanitarian and military int... more A groundbreaking exploration of the philosophy underpinning Western humanitarian and military intervention. The principle of the “lesser evil”—the acceptability of pursuing one exceptional course of action in order to prevent a greater injustice—has long been a cornerstone of Western ethical philosophy. From its roots in classical ethics and Christian theology, to Hannah Arendt’s exploration of the work of the Jewish Councils during the Nazi regime, Weizman explores its development in three key transformations of the problem: the defining intervention of Medecins Sans Frontieres in mid-1980s Ethiopia; the separation wall in Israel-Palestine; and international and human rights law in Bosnia, Gaza and Iraq. Drawing on a wealth of new research, Weizman charts the latest manifestation of this age-old idea. In doing so he shows how military and political intervention acquired a new “humanitarian” acceptability and legality in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
This chapter focuses on the contributions of Israeli and Palestinian cause lawyers to the creatio... more This chapter focuses on the contributions of Israeli and Palestinian cause lawyers to the creation and development of a human rights movement in Israel and Palestine, with particular focus on the protection of the rights of residents in the Occupied Territories, and on the work of lawyers within the Israeli military court system. Their activities demonstrate that mobilization around the cause of human rights is not an effect of globalization but one of its manifestations.
Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions are international offenses and perpetrators can be prose... more Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions are international offenses and perpetrators can be prosecuted abroad if accountability is not pursued at home. The US torture policy, instituted by the Bush administration in the context of the “war on terror” presents a contemporary example of liability for gross crimes under international law. For this reason, classification and secrecy have functioned in tandem as a shield to block public knowledge about prosecutable offenses. Keeping such information secret and publicizing deceptive official accounts that contradict the truth are essential to propaganda strategies to sustain American support or apathy about the country’s multiple current wars. Although a great deal of information and evidence has come to light about the US torture policy, there has been no thorough domestic investigation up the chain of command, no full public disclosure, and no effort to prosecute its intellectual authors in US courts. The classified diplomatic cables al...
The interests of sovereign states and individuals do not always agree and this complicates the po... more The interests of sovereign states and individuals do not always agree and this complicates the politics of human rights at the broadest levels. Relatedly, torture is not merely the infliction of pain but involves complex interconnections between morality, legality and politics. Justice, on the other hand, is an abstract principle that is devoid of the immediacy on physical destruction. And on the whole, the necessity for collective security takes precedence over the interests and desires of the individual.
Hajjar 475 edge (how the subject is framed) and power (what strategies of intervention are used).... more Hajjar 475 edge (how the subject is framed) and power (what strategies of intervention are used)." Yet there is a distinction between cause lawyering and human rights: the latter is already globalized; the genealogy of human rights is rooted in the globalization of mod-ernist ...
This article focuses on the issue of domestic violence in Muslim societies in the Middle East, Af... more This article focuses on the issue of domestic violence in Muslim societies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The analytical framework is comparative, emphasizing four factors and the interplay among them: shari'a (Islamic law), state power, intrafamily violence, and struggles over women's rights. The comparative approach historicizes the problem of domestic violence and impunity to consider the impact of transnational legal discourses (Islamism and human rights) on “local” struggles over rights and law. The use of shari'a creates some commonalities in gender and family relations in Muslim societies, notably the sanctioning and maintenance of male authority over female relatives. However, the most important issue for understanding domestic violence and impunity is the relationship between religion and state power. This relationship takes three forms: communalization, in which religious law is separate from the national legal regime; nationalization, in which the state...
Page 1. HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISRAEL/ PALESTINE: THE HISTORY AND POLITICS OF A MOVEMENT LISA HAJJAR Thi... more Page 1. HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISRAEL/ PALESTINE: THE HISTORY AND POLITICS OF A MOVEMENT LISA HAJJAR This article traces the development and transformation of the human rights movement in Israel/Palestine, focusing ...
Torture is absolutely prohibited and constitutes one of the core crimes under international law. ... more Torture is absolutely prohibited and constitutes one of the core crimes under international law. There is a substantial body of sociolegal literature that addresses torture's illegality. But this article tackles the question “does torture work?” The analysis locates the practice of torture in historical and global perspective, accommodating but not constrained by post-9/11 scholarship on American torture. The titular question is treated more critically and comprehensively than a narrowly construed focus on the value and veracity of utterances produced as a result of pain and suffering. Drawing on scholarship from a variety of fields, the article addresses how torture works (i.e., why it has been used and its effects) in order to highlight the role of torture in the mutually constitutive histories of law-state-society relations. The final section uses the American case to offer conclusions about the efficacy and effects of torture.
Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance... more Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance claims about the post-9/11 scope and discretion of US executive power and to articulate specific interpretations of national security interests and strategic objectives in the “war on terror.” What makes this a paradigm rather than merely a conglomeration of evolving policies is the cohesiveness and mutual reinforcement of its underlying rationales about the rights of the US government to prosecute a territorially unbounded war against an evolving cast of enemies. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of a juridical field, the article focuses on how officials who constructed a legal framework for this paradigm, rather than disregarding international law wholesale, have engaged in interpretations and crafted rationales to evade some international humanitarian law (IHL) rules and norms while rejecting the underlying logic or applicability of others. This article traces the counterterrorism war pa...
Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance... more Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance claims about the post-9/11 scope and discretion of US executive power and to articulate specific interpretations of national security interests and strategic objectives in the "war on terror." What makes this a paradigm rather than merely a conglomeration of evolving policies is the cohesiveness and mutual reinforcement of its underlying rationales about the rights of the US government to prosecute a territorially unbounded war against an evolving cast of enemies. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of a juridical field, the article focuses on how officials who constructed a legal framework for this paradigm, rather than disregarding international law wholesale, have engaged in interpretations and crafted rationales to evade some international humanitarian law (IHL) rules and norms while rejecting the underlying logic or applicability of others. This article traces the counterterrorism war paradigm's development and explains how it now competes with and threatens to supersede the customary law principles enshrined in IHL.
Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance... more Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance claims about the post-9/11 scope and discretion of US executive power and to articulate specific interpretations of national security interests and strategic objectives in the "war on terror." What makes this a paradigm rather than merely a conglomeration of evolving policies is the cohesiveness and mutual reinforcement of its underlying rationales about the rights of the US government to prosecute a territorially unbounded war against an evolving cast of enemies. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of a juridical field, the article focuses on how officials who constructed a legal framework for this paradigm, rather than disregarding international law wholesale, have engaged in interpretations and crafted rationales to evade some international humanitarian law (IHL) rules and norms while rejecting the underlying logic or applicability of others. This article traces the counterterrorism war paradigm's development and explains how it now competes with and threatens to supersede the customary law principles enshrined in IHL.
A groundbreaking exploration of the philosophy underpinning Western humanitarian and military int... more A groundbreaking exploration of the philosophy underpinning Western humanitarian and military intervention. The principle of the “lesser evil”—the acceptability of pursuing one exceptional course of action in order to prevent a greater injustice—has long been a cornerstone of Western ethical philosophy. From its roots in classical ethics and Christian theology, to Hannah Arendt’s exploration of the work of the Jewish Councils during the Nazi regime, Weizman explores its development in three key transformations of the problem: the defining intervention of Medecins Sans Frontieres in mid-1980s Ethiopia; the separation wall in Israel-Palestine; and international and human rights law in Bosnia, Gaza and Iraq. Drawing on a wealth of new research, Weizman charts the latest manifestation of this age-old idea. In doing so he shows how military and political intervention acquired a new “humanitarian” acceptability and legality in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
This chapter focuses on the contributions of Israeli and Palestinian cause lawyers to the creatio... more This chapter focuses on the contributions of Israeli and Palestinian cause lawyers to the creation and development of a human rights movement in Israel and Palestine, with particular focus on the protection of the rights of residents in the Occupied Territories, and on the work of lawyers within the Israeli military court system. Their activities demonstrate that mobilization around the cause of human rights is not an effect of globalization but one of its manifestations.
Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions are international offenses and perpetrators can be prose... more Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions are international offenses and perpetrators can be prosecuted abroad if accountability is not pursued at home. The US torture policy, instituted by the Bush administration in the context of the “war on terror” presents a contemporary example of liability for gross crimes under international law. For this reason, classification and secrecy have functioned in tandem as a shield to block public knowledge about prosecutable offenses. Keeping such information secret and publicizing deceptive official accounts that contradict the truth are essential to propaganda strategies to sustain American support or apathy about the country’s multiple current wars. Although a great deal of information and evidence has come to light about the US torture policy, there has been no thorough domestic investigation up the chain of command, no full public disclosure, and no effort to prosecute its intellectual authors in US courts. The classified diplomatic cables al...
The interests of sovereign states and individuals do not always agree and this complicates the po... more The interests of sovereign states and individuals do not always agree and this complicates the politics of human rights at the broadest levels. Relatedly, torture is not merely the infliction of pain but involves complex interconnections between morality, legality and politics. Justice, on the other hand, is an abstract principle that is devoid of the immediacy on physical destruction. And on the whole, the necessity for collective security takes precedence over the interests and desires of the individual.
Hajjar 475 edge (how the subject is framed) and power (what strategies of intervention are used).... more Hajjar 475 edge (how the subject is framed) and power (what strategies of intervention are used)." Yet there is a distinction between cause lawyering and human rights: the latter is already globalized; the genealogy of human rights is rooted in the globalization of mod-ernist ...
This article focuses on the issue of domestic violence in Muslim societies in the Middle East, Af... more This article focuses on the issue of domestic violence in Muslim societies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The analytical framework is comparative, emphasizing four factors and the interplay among them: shari'a (Islamic law), state power, intrafamily violence, and struggles over women's rights. The comparative approach historicizes the problem of domestic violence and impunity to consider the impact of transnational legal discourses (Islamism and human rights) on “local” struggles over rights and law. The use of shari'a creates some commonalities in gender and family relations in Muslim societies, notably the sanctioning and maintenance of male authority over female relatives. However, the most important issue for understanding domestic violence and impunity is the relationship between religion and state power. This relationship takes three forms: communalization, in which religious law is separate from the national legal regime; nationalization, in which the state...
Page 1. HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISRAEL/ PALESTINE: THE HISTORY AND POLITICS OF A MOVEMENT LISA HAJJAR Thi... more Page 1. HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISRAEL/ PALESTINE: THE HISTORY AND POLITICS OF A MOVEMENT LISA HAJJAR This article traces the development and transformation of the human rights movement in Israel/Palestine, focusing ...
Torture is absolutely prohibited and constitutes one of the core crimes under international law. ... more Torture is absolutely prohibited and constitutes one of the core crimes under international law. There is a substantial body of sociolegal literature that addresses torture's illegality. But this article tackles the question “does torture work?” The analysis locates the practice of torture in historical and global perspective, accommodating but not constrained by post-9/11 scholarship on American torture. The titular question is treated more critically and comprehensively than a narrowly construed focus on the value and veracity of utterances produced as a result of pain and suffering. Drawing on scholarship from a variety of fields, the article addresses how torture works (i.e., why it has been used and its effects) in order to highlight the role of torture in the mutually constitutive histories of law-state-society relations. The final section uses the American case to offer conclusions about the efficacy and effects of torture.
Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance... more Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance claims about the post-9/11 scope and discretion of US executive power and to articulate specific interpretations of national security interests and strategic objectives in the “war on terror.” What makes this a paradigm rather than merely a conglomeration of evolving policies is the cohesiveness and mutual reinforcement of its underlying rationales about the rights of the US government to prosecute a territorially unbounded war against an evolving cast of enemies. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of a juridical field, the article focuses on how officials who constructed a legal framework for this paradigm, rather than disregarding international law wholesale, have engaged in interpretations and crafted rationales to evade some international humanitarian law (IHL) rules and norms while rejecting the underlying logic or applicability of others. This article traces the counterterrorism war pa...
Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance... more Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance claims about the post-9/11 scope and discretion of US executive power and to articulate specific interpretations of national security interests and strategic objectives in the "war on terror." What makes this a paradigm rather than merely a conglomeration of evolving policies is the cohesiveness and mutual reinforcement of its underlying rationales about the rights of the US government to prosecute a territorially unbounded war against an evolving cast of enemies. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of a juridical field, the article focuses on how officials who constructed a legal framework for this paradigm, rather than disregarding international law wholesale, have engaged in interpretations and crafted rationales to evade some international humanitarian law (IHL) rules and norms while rejecting the underlying logic or applicability of others. This article traces the counterterrorism war paradigm's development and explains how it now competes with and threatens to supersede the customary law principles enshrined in IHL.
Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance... more Since 2001, we have witnessed the development of a counterterrorism war paradigm built to advance claims about the post-9/11 scope and discretion of US executive power and to articulate specific interpretations of national security interests and strategic objectives in the "war on terror." What makes this a paradigm rather than merely a conglomeration of evolving policies is the cohesiveness and mutual reinforcement of its underlying rationales about the rights of the US government to prosecute a territorially unbounded war against an evolving cast of enemies. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of a juridical field, the article focuses on how officials who constructed a legal framework for this paradigm, rather than disregarding international law wholesale, have engaged in interpretations and crafted rationales to evade some international humanitarian law (IHL) rules and norms while rejecting the underlying logic or applicability of others. This article traces the counterterrorism war paradigm's development and explains how it now competes with and threatens to supersede the customary law principles enshrined in IHL.
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