Iraq and the Crimes of Aggressive War: The Legal Cynicism of Criminal Militarism (Cambridge Studies in Law and Society) - Softcover

Hagan, John; Kaiser, Joshua; Hanson, Anna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107507014 ISBN 13: 9781107507012

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2015

Synopsis

From the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib to unnecessary military attacks on civilians, this book is an account of the violations of international criminal law committed during the United States invasion of Iraq. Taking stock of the entire war, it uniquely documents the overestimation of the successes and underestimation of the failings of the Surge and Awakening policies. The authors show how an initial cynical framing of the American war led to the creation of a new Shia-dominated Iraq state, which in turn provoked powerful feelings of legal cynicism among Iraqis, especially the Sunni. The predictable result was a resilient Sunni insurgency that reemerged in the violent aftermath of the 2011 withdrawal. Examining more than a decade of evidence, this book makes a powerful case that the American war in Iraq constituted a criminal war of aggression.

About this title

Book Description:

From the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib to unnecessary attacks on civilians - both predominately targeted at Arab Sunnis - this book argues that the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq constituted a criminal war of aggression.

About the Author:

John Hagan is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University, Illinois and Co-Director of the Center on Law and Globalization at the American Bar Foundation. His previous Cambridge University Press books are Mean Streets: Youth Crime and Homelessness (with Bill McCarthy) and Darfur and the Crime of Genocide (with Wenona Rymond-Richmond). Hagan is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada. In 2015, he received the Cesare Beccaria Medal in Gold, a lifetime achievement award, from the German Criminological Society.

Joshua Kaiser is a Law and Social Science Fellow at the American Bar Foundation and a JD-PhD candidate in law and sociology at Northwestern University, Illinois. His research focuses on the sociology and criminology of state control and state violence, both in the United States and internationally.

Anna Hanson is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University, Illinois. Her research focuses on issues of terrorism and human rights.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1107507014
• ISBN 13: 9781107507012
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 260