Markus Abraham

Butler’s concept of nonviolence aims at questioning narratives that validate violence. In this paper, I evaluate the efficacy of her analysis by examining the most cogent instance of violence justification, i. e., the institution of self-defense. I show that her argumentation largely concerns the abusive invocation of self-defense rather than its legitimatory kernel. However, Butler offers two novel arguments that hold promise for challenging the justification of violence via the idea of self-defense.

Um die Legitimation des Völkerstrafrechts als eines Instruments des universalen Menschenrechtsschutzes zu stärken, ist es an der Zeit, dass sich das Völkerstrafrecht Diskursen öffnet, die sich mit den Implikationen kolonialen Denkens und kolonialer Praktiken beschäftigen. Diese Auseinandersetzung will der vorliegende Band voranbringen. Er erhält Beiträge von Vertreter:innen der Postkolonialen Theorie sowie von Vertreter:innen der Völkerstrafrechtswissenschaft, die die Herausforderungen und das Potential der postkolonialen Kritik für das Völkerstrafrecht ausloten.

While evil is a classic topic in philosophy, it is considered a non-topic in law because talking about evil mystifies, personalises, naturalises, demonises and moralises. The author argues that this different approach to the phenomenon of evil prevents dialogue between the disciplines. At the core of the book is the thesis that the law is fruitful for the question of evil because the current law – understood as social practice – contains a conception of the evil act. This conception is made explicit and thus opened up to interdisciplinary debate. This title is also available as open access.