When the exception becomes the rule: borders,sovereignty, and citizenship

Borders are a unique political space, in which both sovereignty and citizenship are performed by individuals and sovereigns. Using the work of Agamben and Foucault, this article examines how decisions made at the border alienate each and every traveler crossing the frontier, not simply the ‘sans papiers’ or refugees. The governmentality at play in the border examination relies on an embedded confessionary complex and the ‘neurotic citizen’, as well as structures of identity, documentation, and data management. The state border is a permanent state of exception that clearly demonstrates the importance of biopolitics to the smooth operation of sovereign power.     

Passports, Mobility, and Security: How smart can the border be?

After September 11, 2001, a great deal of public and policy attention has been devoted to border security, passports, and the global mobility regime. This article examines the context of the global regulation of movement of individuals and the evolution of the passport in particular. It then examines the current American border security architecture. The creation of the Homeland Security Department reflects a sea-change in the view of the border, and these new policies are evaluated in regard to three cases: the U.S./Canada border, the document/examination policies at the American borders, and the European Schengen mobility regime.     

Writing las dissertations,part one: the rationale for an experimential research project

This article describes the impetus for a research project conducted during 2002–2003 into our law students' experiences of undertaking a dissertation module. It also discusses the rationale for the particular methodology and approach we have used to conduct this research, and presents the results. A driving force behind this research project was not only the desire to obtain knowledge for its own sake but also the need to identify and enhance positive aspects of students' experience of this module. We decided to adopt a student led and experiential method of carrying out our research that focuses directly upon the students' lived-experience of engaging in dissertation writing. The rationale for this decision was our acknowledgement that, within the last decade, students are increasingly defining themselves as consumers of educational services and have a legitimate and indeed pivotal role in quality assurance strategies. We also recognised that adopting an experiential method of inquiry, informed by a phenomenological approach, should, in principle, help to empower students by acknowledging their autonomy and encouraging them to engage in critical reflection. Finally, applying this methodology would provide us with precisely the subjectively rich type of research data derived from the students' lived-experience that we sought. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Toys for the Boys? Drones,Pleasure and Popular Culture in the Militarisation of Policing

This paper argues that the various and contradictory rationales offered for law enforcement drones are symptomatic of a ‘weapons fetish’ evident in popular culture. This fetishisation imbues military technology such as the drone with masculine fantasies of control and domination that obscure the practical limitations and ethical implications of drones for crime control and prevention. By linking the pleasures of militarism to crucial shifts in the social and economic order, the paper argues that counter-terrorism discourse functions to legitimate the militarised masculine subject positions of paramilitary policing specifically and the neoliberal state generally. In such a context, the drone features as a regressive ‘weapon-toy’ that fuses state control with technological transcendence.     

Ensuring the after-life of the Ciano diaries: Allen Dulles' provision of Nuremberg trial evidence

The relationship between Western intelligence officials and Nazi war crimes prosecutors has been, and in some aspects remains, a difficult one. It is increasingly apparent that it is precisely the selective nature of support war crimes prosecutors can expect from intelligence officials that merits particular scholarly attention. One such example in this case of positive assistance concerns the provision of a specific piece of evidence, the diaries of Ciano, Mussolini's Foreign Minister, obtained for the Allies by Allen Dulles, a senior US wartime intelligence official with the OSS, based in Bern, Switzerland, and used in the prosecution case against Ribbentrop at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. This article, based largely upon recently declassified American security files, closely examines Dulles' actions undertaken to retrieve the diaries and pass them to the prosecution.     

Inter- and intra-subject variability in ethanol pharmacokinetic parameters: effects of testing interval and dose

Calculation of a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at the time of an offence by forward or back-extrapolation, using population average values for ethanol pharmacokinetic parameters or a single estimate of individual specific parameters, ignores the possibility of inter- and intra-subject variability. In order to estimate inter- and intra-subject variability in the elimination rate and absorption rate, BAC was measured over time in 12 male volunteers on 4 occasions. Subjects received 0.44 g kg(-1) body weight of ethanol on the first study day, and 0.70 g kg(-1) body weight on subsequent study days 1, 11 and 12 weeks later, to enable comparisons in variability over short and long time periods and when the same or different doses were administered. Evidence of both inter- and intra-subject variability was found, with inter-subject variability substantially smaller than intra-subject variability when the dose varied. Forensically important differences in pharmacokinetic parameters were observed within individuals between occasions. These findings could have an important impact on medico-legal issues related to ethanol pharmacokinetics.