ISIS-chan – the meanings of the Manga girl in image warfare against the Islamic State

This article explores gendered meanings of ISIS-chan, an Internet meme in the form of a manga girl, produced and used to disrupt the messages from the Islamic State. Moreover, it investigates the performative power of ISIS-chan, and how it is used/interpreted as it circulates on the Internet. The ISIS-chan campaign is seen as an example of how the girl figure is mobilised in the political context of the War on Terror. Characterised by girlish playfulness, humour and creativity, I suggest that ISIS-chan challenges the stereotypical representations of femininity in the War on Terror, and may be perceived as a trickster.     

From compliant to capable: balanced capacity development for local organisations

How to strengthen local capacity through donor-funded projects remains opaque. Using the European Centre for Development Policy Management's core capabilities model to examine a project engaging local organisations, we identify capabilities differentiating performance and gains from project participation. The studied organisations were often weak in capabilities important for successfully working with local governments. Some strengthened capacity, but improvements were concentrated in capabilities related to complying with donors’ requirements rather than capabilities enhancing performance. We question assumptions underlying programme designs based on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's donor-country cooperation principles, and offer suggestions for balancing capacity gains to sustain independent local organisations.     

DNA in the Criminal Justice System: The DNA Success Story in Perspective,

Current figures on the efficiency of DNA as an investigative tool in criminal investigations only tell part of the story. To get the DNA success story in the right perspective, we examined all forensic reports from serious (N = 116) and high‐volume crime cases (N = 2791) over the year 2011 from one police region in the Netherlands. These data show that 38% of analyzed serious crime traces (N = 384) and 17% of analyzed high‐volume crime traces (N = 386) did not result in a DNA profile. Turnaround times (from crime scene to DNA report) were 66 days for traces from serious crimes and 44 days for traces from high‐volume crimes. Suspects were truly identified through a match with the Offender DNA database of the Netherlands in 3% of the serious crime cases and in 1% of the high‐volume crime cases. These data are important for both the forensic laboratory and the professionals in the criminal justice system to further optimize forensic DNA testing as an investigative tool.     

Assistive technology as support for the exercise of legal capacity

Exercising legal capacity refers to engaging in legal transactions and relationships and is essential for the full inclusion of people with disabilities in society. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has enumerated the right to legal capacity on an equal basis and has created a state obligation to provide access to support for the exercise of legal capacity. This article examines the use of assistive devices as support for decision-making in exercising legal capacity for individuals with physical and cognitive impairments; for example, the use of voice recognition programmes, screen readers, and screen enlargement applications to support people with mobility and sensory impairments to use online portals essential for legal actions such as banking. It also discusses the experimental use of cognitive assistance, including computer or electrical assistive devices, to facilitate communication for people with cognitive impairments including those with no external signs of consciousness. It highlights the diversity of options for ‘support for the exercise of legal capacity’ showing how they can assist people with various disabilities. Finally, the article examines the boundaries of the state obligation to provide such support, including issues of practical implementation and resource allocation.     

Legitimising liberal militarism: politics,law and war in the Arms Trade Treaty

Post-cold war efforts to knit together human rights and international humanitarian law in pursuit of tougher arms transfer control reached their apogee in the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). In contrast to dominant accounts based on human security norms, I argue that a key effect of the ATT is to legitimise liberal forms of militarism. During negotiations the US and UK governments justified their arms export practices in terms of morality, responsibility and legitimacy. More broadly their arms transfer practices are explained away by reference to national regulatory regimes that exceed the standards set out in the ATT. Arms transfers to Egypt and intra-Western transfers illustrate the way these justifications and regimes serve to shield US–UK weapons transfers and use from scrutiny and accountability. Rather than signalling the victory of human security, the ATT is better understood as facilitating the mobilisation of legitimacy for contemporary liberal forms of war fighting and war preparation.     

When ‘Anxious Scrutiny’ of Arms Exports Facilitates Humanitarian Disaster

How is it that the UK government continues to export weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen, despite an explicit commitment to international humanitarian law (IHL)? And how is it that the High Court recently dismissed a case of judicial review, confirming that the government was ‘rationally entitled to conclude’ that arms exports pose no clear risk to IHL in Yemen? In what follows, I explain how a flexible interpretation of risk, reliance on secret information, and deference of the Court to the executive serve to facilitate rather than restrict arms exports. The judges’ decision provides a stamp of approval to an arms export policy that has directly contributed to the deaths of thousands of civilians in Yemen. Attention to the Saudi/Yemen case shows the political and legal manoeuvring that goes into managing the contradictions in government arms export policy.     

Touching the rainbow

Swiss‐torn painter Angelica Kauffman (1741–1807) was trained in Italy, then moved to London in 1766, where she was to stay for 15 years. Kauffman soon became one of the leading neo‐classical artists, famous for her portraits and history paintings. Her high art pictures won an enormous popularity and were executed, e.g., in interior decorations and as prints. As one of the founding members of the Royal Academy of Arts and belonging to the inner circle surrounding its president, the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, Kauffman was commissioned for four corner roundels in the ceiling of the Council and Assembly Room in the academy's new home, Somerset House, today at Burlington House. These allegorical paintings on the appropriate theme of the Visual Arts (and part of a larger programme) are discussed in this essay, and especially one of these, representing “Painting”. By means of iconographical analysis it is argued that Kauffman, following the tradition of feminist history painters like Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1652/53), is not only representing the theory and praxis of the artistic process but in so doing, also comments on the dominant ideology of sexual difference.