Law’s Impunity: Responsibility and the Modern Private Military Company: 56 (Studies in International Law) - Softcover

Liu, Hin-Yan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1509918396 ISBN 13: 9781509918393

Publisher: Hart Publishing, 1937

Synopsis

When faced with those who act with impunity, we seek the protection of law. We rely upon the legal system for justice, from international human rights law that establishes common standards of protection, to international criminal law that spearheads efforts to end impunity for the most heinous atrocities. While legal processes are perceived to combat impunity, and despite the ready availability of the law, accountability often remains elusive. What if the law itself enables impunity?

Law's Impunity asks this question in the context of the modern Private Military Company (PMC), examining the relationship between law and the concepts of responsibility and impunity. This book proposes that ordinary legal processes do not neutralise, but rather legalise impunity. This radical idea is applied to the abysmal record of human rights violations perpetrated by the modern PMC and the shocking absence of accountability. This book demonstrates how the law organises, rather than overcomes, impunity by detailing how the modern PMC exploits ordinary legal processes to systematically exclude itself from legal responsibility. Thus, Law's Impunity offers an alternative to conventional thinking about the law, providing an innovative approach to assess and refine the rigour of legal processes in the ongoing quest to end impunity.

About this title

Review:

The scholarship of the author and the quality of data analysis make the book an essential read for researchers concerned, not only with the PMC phenomenon, but mainly with questions of impunity in international law...an astonishing work bridging complex concepts with a contemporary empirical analysis of the important issue of PMC.
Journal of Human Security

Law's impunity is a well-written, thorough, and thought-provoking monograph. It provides a wealth of information and analysis concerning the history, practice and law applicable to private military companies, and then builds on this foundation by offering a compelling analysis of law's failures and potentially counter-productive efforts when it comes to regulating and holding such companies to account.
Business and Human Rights Journal Vol 1

About the Author:

Hin-Yan Liu is Associate Professor at the Centre for International Law, Conflict and Crisis, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. He was previously a Max Weber Fellow and then a Research Fellow at the European University Institute, and has held academic positions at New York University in Florence, King's College London and the University of Westminster.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hart Publishing
• Publication date: 1937
• ISBN 10: 1509918396
• ISBN 13: 9781509918393
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400