The Naming of Evil
Sovereignty, Security and Unlawful Warfare
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5347/isonomia.v0i54.433Keywords:
evil, war, terrorism, ISIS, Islamic State, international law, politics, philosophyAbstract
This article argues for the fundamental importance of ‘evil-naming’ as a constitutive operation of modern political discourse. To achieve this goal the article first draws attention to how global, and seemingly consensual, institutional and public discourses have defined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a contemporary form of ‘evil’ and how the international community has conceived of its engagement with this entity. Based on this analysis and on insights from the history of early-modern struggles against pirates and ‘enemies of mankind’, the article shows that political modernity has less failed to erase the ‘archaic’ practice of evil-naming than constantly relied on it. To make this claim, the article identifies discursive patterns and practical effects of evil-naming and draws out the ambivalent relationship between evil-naming and sovereignty and security as cornerstones of political modernity. The article concludes by engaging with the question of whether and to what extent the concept of evil can be critiqued and dismissed as some scholars have argued.
References
Ahram, Ariel I. 2015. “Sexual Violence and the Making of ISIS.” Survival 57(3):57–78.
Anon. 2015. “Hollande: la France sera «impitoyable à l’égard des barbares de Daesh».” Libération, http://www.liberation.fr/france/2015/11/14/hollande-la-france-seraimpitoyable-a-l-egard-des-barbares-de-daesh_1413401. Accessed 17 March 2017.
Bannellier-Christakis, Karine. 2016. “Military Interventions against ISIL in Iraq, Syria and Libya, and the Legal Basis of Consent.” Leiden Journal of International Law 29:743–775.
Baudrillard, Jean, 1990. La Transparence du Mal. Essai sur les phénomènes extrêmes. Paris: Galilée.
Bernstein, Richard J. 2002. Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation. Cambridge: Polity.
________, 2005. The Abuse of Evil: The Corruption of Politics and Religion since 9/11. Cambridge: Polity.
Biden, Joe. 2016. “Remarks by Vice President Joe Biden and Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.” https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/08/25/remarks-vice-president-joe-biden-and-turkish-prime-minister-binali. Accessed 9 March 2017.
Blanchard, Christopher M., and Humud, Carla E. 2017. “The Islamic State and U.S. Policy.” CRS Report, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R43612.pdf . Accessed 3 March 2017.
Braudel, Fernand. 1949. La Méditerranée et le Monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II. Paris: Armand Colin.
Brunnstrom, David, and Baczynska, Gabriela. 2015. “Russia says no common approach yet with U.S. on fighting Islamic State.” Reuters, http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usarussia-malaysia-idUKKCN0QA0FR20150805. Accessed 26 March 2018.
Bull, Hedley. 2002. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, third edition. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bush, George Washington. 2002. State of the Union Address, https://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html. Accessed 25 March 2018.
Butler, Judith. 2004. Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence. London and New York: Verso.
________, 2009. Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? London and New York: Verso.
Byman, Daniel. 2016. “Understanding the Islamic State: A Review Essay.” International Security 40(4):127–165.
Cacciari, Massimo. 2013. Il potere che frena. Saggio di teologia politica. Milano: Adelphi.
Cameron, David. 2015. House of Commons Debate, 2 December 2015. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm151202/debtext/151202-0001.htm
Cavarero, Adriana. 2009. Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence. Translated by William McCuaig. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
Cockburn, Patrick. 2015. The Rise of the Islamic State: Isis and the New Sunni Revolution, second edition. London: Verso.
Corten, Olivier. 2016. “The ‘Unwilling or Unable’ Test: Has it been, or Could it be, Accepted?” Leiden Journal of International Law 29:777–799.
Couzigou, Irène. 2017. “The Fight Against The “Islamic State” In Syria: Towards The Modification Of The Right To Self-Defence?” Geopolitics, History and International Relations 9(2):80–106.
Denselow, James. 2015. “How evil is ISIS?” Al Jazeera, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/08/evil-isil-syria-iraq-150813081613196.html. Accessed 2 March 2017.
Dunlap, Charles J. 2016. “No Good Options Against Isis Barbarism? Human Shields in 21st Century Conflicts.” AJIL Unbound 110:311–316.
Esposito, Roberto. 2006. Communitas. Origine e destino della comunità, new edition. Torino: Einaudi.
Gordon, Neve, and Perugini, Nicola. 2016. “Human Shields, Sovereign Power, and the Evisceration of The Civilian.” AJIL Unbound 110:299–334.
Haggenmacher, Peter. 1983. Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste. Paris. Presses Universitaires de France.
Haykel, Bernard. 2016. “ISIS and al-Qaeda—What Are They Thinking? Understanding the Adversary.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 668:71–81.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1988 [1807]. Phänomenologie des Geistes. Hamburg: Meiner.
Heller-Roazen, Daniel. 2009. TheEnemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations. New York: Zone Books.
Hollande, François. 2014. “Propos liminaire du président de la République lors la conférence de presse du 18 septembre 2014.” http://www.elysee.fr/conferences-de-presse/article/propos-liminaire-du-president-de-la-republique-lors-la-conference-de-presse-du-18septembre-201/. Accessed 9 March 2017.
________, 2015. “Frappes aériennes françaises en Syrie.” http://www.elysee.fr/communiquesde-presse/article/frappes-aeriennes-francaises-en-syrie/. Accessed 17 March 2017.
Hurrell, Andrew. 2007. On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ignatieff, Michael. 2004. The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Jakobs, Günther. 2004. “Bürgerstrafrecht und Feindstrafrecht.” HRRS – Höchstrichterliche Rechtsprechung zum Strafrecht 4:88–95.
Jeffery, Renée. 2005. “Beyond banality? Ethical responses to Evil in Post-September 11 International Relations.” International Affairs 81(4):175–186.
Kempe, Michael, and Gänswein, Oliver. 2010. “Die Rückkehr der Universalfeinde.” Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 32(2):91–106.
Lavrov, Sergej. 2016. “Remarks and Answers to Media Questions at a Joint News Conference Following Talks with Mongolian Foreign Minister Tsendiyn Munkh-Orgil.” http://www.mid.ru/en/web/guest/meropriyatiya_s_uchastiem_ministra/-/asset_publisher/xK1BhB2bUjd3/content/id/2639541. Accessed 26 March 2018.
Mills, Kurt. 1998. “United Nations intervention in refugee crises after the Cold War”. International Politics 35(4):391-424.
Molin Friis, Simone. 2015. “‘Beyond Anything We Have Ever Seen’: Beheading Videos and the Visibility of Violence in the War Against ISIS.” International Affairs 91(4):725–746.
Neiman, Susan. 2004. Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. With a New Preface by the Author. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Obama, Barack. 2014a. “Statement by the President.” https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/07/statement-president. Accessed 9 March 2017.
________, 2014b. “We Will Degrade and Ultimately Destroy ISIS.” https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/09/10/president-obama-we-will-degrade-and-ultimatelydestroy-isil. Accessed 9 March 2018.
________, 2014c. “War Powers Resolution Report Regarding Iraq.” Digest of United States Practice in International Law 726.
Orford, Anne. 2003. Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Perra, Antonio. 2016. “From the Arab Spring to the Damascus Winter: The United States, Russia, and the New Cold War.” ContemporaryReview of the Middle East 3(4):363–386.
Rech, Walter. 2013. Enemies of Mankind: Vattel’s Theory of Collective Security. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Rengger, Nicholas J., and Jeffery, Renée. 2005. “Moral Evil and International Relations.” SAIS Review of International Affairs 25(1):3–16.
Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Russell, Frederick H. 1975. The Just War in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmitt, Carl. 2006 [1950]. The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. Trans. G.L. Ulmen. New York: Telos Press.
________, 2007 [1932]. The Concept of the Political. Expanded Edition. Trans. George Schwab. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press
Simpson, Gerry. 2006. “Enemies of Humankind.” In Law, Ethics and Society, edited by Jennifer Gunning et al. Aldershot: Ashgate, 85–94.
________, 2007a. Law, War and Crime. War Crimes Trials and the Reinvention of International Law. Cambridge: Polity.
________, 2007b. “Piracy and the Origins of Enmity.” In Time, History and International Law, edited by Matthew Craven, Malgosia Fitzmaurice, and Maria Vogiatzi. Leiden and Boston: Nijhoff, 219–230.
Sinifer, Asaf, and Lucas, Scott. 2016. “The Islamic State Lexical Battleground: US Foreign Policy and the Abstraction of Threat.” International Affairs 92(1):63–79.
Sofka, James R. 1997. “The Jeffersonian Idea of National Security: Commerce, the Atlantic Balance of Power, and the Barbary War, 1786–1805.” Diplomatic History 21(4):519– 544.
Téson, Fernando R. 2016. “The Case for Armed Intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.” The Independent Review 21(2):181–97.
Topper, Keith. 1995. “Richard Rorty, Liberalism and the Politics of Redescription.” American Political Science Review 89(4):954–65.
Trump, Donald. 2017a. Remarks by President Trump on the Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-presidenttrump-strategy-afghanistan-south-asia/. Accessed 26 March 2018.
________, 2017b. “Remarks by President Trump to the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/09/19/remarks-president-trump-72nd-session-united-nations-general-assembly. Accessed 25 March 2018.
Tsagourias, Nicholas. 2016. “Self-Defence against Non-state Actors: The Interaction between Self-Defence as a Primary Rule and Self-Defence as a Secondary Rule.” Leiden Journal of International Law 29:801–825.
Veitch, Scott. 2007. Law and Irresponsibility: On the Legitimation of Human Suffering. Abingdon: Routledge.
Walzer, Michael. 2004. Arguing About War. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
________, 2016. “What Kind of War is This?” Dissent, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/france-us-uk-air-strikes-isis-just-war-theory. Accessed 25 November 2016.
Human Rights Council
A/HRC/24/46, 16 August 2013. https://undocs.org/A/HRC/24/46. Accessed 20 May 2021
A/HRC/29/37, 24 April 2015. https://undocs.org/A/HRC/29/37. Accessed 20 May 2021.
A/HRC/29/51, 16 June 2015. https://undocs.org/A/HRC/29/51. Accessed 20 May 2021
A/HRC/30/48, 13 August 2015. https://undocs.org/A/HRC/30/48. Accessed 20 May 2021.
A/HRC/31/68, 11 February 2016. https://undocs.org/A/HRC/31/68. Accessed 20 May 2021.
A/HRC/WG.6/20/IRQ/2, 18 August 2014.
General Assembly Meeting Records
A/70/PV.13, 28 September 2015. https://undocs.org/en/A/70/PV.13. Accessed 20 May 2021
A/71/PV.14, 22 September 2016. https://undocs.org/en/A/71/PV.14. Accessed 20 May 2021.
Security Council Resolutions
S/RES/1267, 15 October 1999. https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/1267(1999). Accessed 20 May 2021
S/RES/1989, 17 June 2011. https://www.undocs.org/S/RES/1989%20(2011). Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/RES/2209, 6 March 2015. https://undocs.org/S/RES/2209(2015). Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/RES/2233, 29 July 2015. https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/2233(2015). Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/RES/2235, 7 August 2015. https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/2235(2015). Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/RES/2249, 20 November 2015. https://undocs.org/S/RES/2249(2015). Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/RES/2258, 22 December 2015. https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/2258(2015). Accessed 20
S/RES/2314, 31 October 2016. https://undocs.org/S/RES/2314(2016). Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/RES/2319, 17 November 2016. https://undocs.org/S/RES/2319(2016). Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/RES/2330, 19 December 2016. https://undocs.org/S/RES/2330(2016). Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/RES/2332, 21 December 2016. https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/2332(2016). Accessed 20 May 2021
S/RES/2397, 22 December 2017. https://www.undocs.org/S/RES/2397%20(2017). Accessed 20 May 2021.
Security Council Meeting Records
S/PV.7116, 22 February 2014. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7116. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7222, 22 July 2014. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7222. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7271, 19 September 2014. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7271. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7316, 19 November 2014. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7316. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7360, 15 January 2015. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7360. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7374, 30 January 2015. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7374. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7379, 12 February 2015. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7379. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7430, 21 April 2015. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7430. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S.PV.7524, 16 September 2015. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7524. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7565, 20 November 2015. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7565. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7585, 16 December 2015. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7585. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7587, 17 December 2015. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7587. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7623, 16 February 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7623. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7690, 11 May 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7690. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7736, 12 July 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7736. Accessed 20 May 2021
S/PV.7744, 25 July 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7744. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7757, 22 August 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7757. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7772, 15 September 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7772. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S.PV.7785, 8 October 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7785. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7792, 19 October 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7792. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7798, 31 October 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7798. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7817, 21 November 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7817. Accessed 20 May 2021
S/PV.7834, 13 December 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7834. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/PV.7839, 16 December 2016. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7839. Accessed 20 May 2021
S/PV.7893, 28 February 2017. https://undocs.org/S/PV.7893. Accessed 20 May 2021.
Security Council Reports and Letters
S/2014/31, 27 January 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/31. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/224, 27 March 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/224. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/295, 23 April 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/295. Accessed 20 May 2021
S/2014/339, 15 May 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/339. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/365, 22 May 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/365. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/427, 20 June 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/427. Accessed 20 May 2021
S/2014/432, 23 June 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/432. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/439, 26 June 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/439. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/485, 11 July 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/485. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/649, 4 September 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/649. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/695, 23 September 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/695. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/703, 29 September 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/703. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/724, 8 October 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/724. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/770, 29 October 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/770. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2014/902, 18 December 2014. https://undocs.org/S/2014/902. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2016/92, 29 January 2016. https://undocs.org/S/2016/92. Accessed 20 May 2021.
S/2016/816, 29 September 2016. https://undocs.org/S/2016/816. Accessed 20 May 2021.
SC/11799, 25 February 2015. https://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc11799.doc.htm. Accessed 20 May 2021
SC/11904, 22 May 2015. https://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc11904.doc.htm. Accessed 20 May 2021.
Committee on the Rights of the Child
CRC/C/SR.1958, 27 January 2015. https://undocs.org/CRC/C/SR.1958. Accessed 20 May 2021.
CRC/C/SR.1960, 26 January 2015. https://undocs.org/CRC/C/SR.1960. Accessed 20 May 2021.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
ITAM, the publisher, has the copyright of published articles and remaining types of publications. Publications are in open access and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. That means, among other things, that authors can freely share their articles, once published in Isonomía, on their personal web pages, Academia.edu, etc.. Between formal acceptance and online publication, authors can share the final drafts of their articles. In contrast, authors must seek permission to reproduce or reprint work, and mention, in the first footnote, "previously published in Isonomía, year, n. x, pp. xx-xx"..
