Assyrian Attitude Towards Captive Enemies: A 2700‐year‐old Paleo‐forensic Study

The Assyrians, who ruled at the height of their power between Egypt and the Persian Gulf (745–630 BC), are known from historical records to have been cruel and unrelenting towards their enemies. However, osteological evidence for this behavior is scarce. We herein present a case of an adult male skeleton, dated to the Iron Age IIB period (second half of the 8th century BC), who manifests traumatic injuries to the skull, left forearm, vertebrae, and ribs. Using modern forensic methods, the injuries were studied, and the consequences that led to these injuries reconstructed. Three possible scenarios are presented: (i) wounds inflicted during a chaotic battle; (ii) wounds caused by the chasing and capturing of a victim; and (iii) a commonly practiced violent attitude of Assyrian soldiers towards a captive combatant. Combining all the evidence at hand, the latter scenario appears more likely. This skeleton may therefore be one of the sole tangible physical evidence for the veracity of the Assyrians’ post‐battle behavior, as depicted in ancient texts and reliefs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reporting and Interpreting Legal Violence in Asia: The East India Company's Printed Accounts of Torture, 1603–24

This article examines how printed accounts of torture can reveal the ways the law was experienced, interpreted and reported by the East India Company (EIC) during the early decades of the seventeenth century. It will explore how the company came to impose its own interpretation of the law when interacting with local powers and people while simultaneously attempting to adapt to and operate within existing legal systems in early modern Asia. This careful balance—sustaining English law while accepting the restraints of a different legal system—was essential in a region where merchants and other travellers moved through areas criss-crossed with overlapping jurisdictions. Interactions with locals often turned violent, even when under the protection of local states, and the English used legal violence to sustain their position in Asia as much as they were threatened by its use by others. Concepts of how the law operated were far from simple and overlapping legal institutions, customs and ideas resulted in numerous moments of competition as different legal structures were imposed simultaneously. The company was forced to think carefully about these issues when law and violence came together during the most violent aspect of judicial enquiry—torture. To assess how the EIC thought about the law and how this influenced the development of their imperial policies this article will focus on how information regarding the law—in its most extreme application—was reported to an English and European audience through the careful presentation of information regarding events in Asia.

It will focus on two case studies where torture was experienced by English merchants—and where accounts were deemed important enough for reportage and printed distribution. The accounts considered here, reporting the experience of torture in Bantam in 1603 and in Amboyna in 1623, were carefully developed and distributed by the company and intended to effectively present its ideas regarding the law and jurisdiction in the developing world of global commerce and empire. In the first, we see the English factors at Bantam seeking to operate within the parameters of the local rulers but increasingly turning to their own understanding of the law in response to threats. The account of this episode reveals how the company justified the seizure of legal authority through the effective interpretation of both English ideas of proof and their own grasp of international law. The second account covers an opposing scenario, where Dutch merchants seized legal authority over the English in contravention—or so the company claimed—of the law of nature and failing to effectively follow the rules of law regarding proof. Across the two accounts we see how the company struggled to come to terms with the ways it interpreted the law. This is turn defined how it developed policies regarding its role overseas, and the reporting of these legal encounters in England changed the way that other parts of the world and the challenges of international trade were understood.     

The Limits of Bonhoefferian Responsibility: On Jean Bethke Elshtain's (Mis)Use of Bonhoeffer

ABSTRACT

Jean Elshtain claims that her defense of torture draws from the Christian tradition. To defend this claim, she makes direct appeal to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Her defense of torture has taken on greater political significance today. This article will refute Elshtain's claim to Bonhoeffer. To do so, this article will first point to Bonhoeffer's explicit rejection of torture in Ethics, then argue that Bonhoeffer's rejection of torture draws from themes initiated in Creation and Fall. Placing Bonhoeffer in conversation with David Decosimo will show that Bonhoeffer holds a distinction between relation-ending and relation-perverting acts. Responsible actors may be called to perform the former class of actions, like tyrannicide, in extraordinary situations. However, the latter class of actions, like torture or rape, constitutes a limit to responsible action that we find no evidence Bonhoeffer is willing to cross. Elshtain, and others who wish to provide “Christian” defenses of torture, must look elsewhere.     

“The family farm”: A review of a central concept in western European agricultural politics

This article explores the differences between Danish lay and Roman inquisitorial witchcraft prosecution, by investigating the understanding of witchcraft and how it inflicted on the course of the trials. For the first half of the 17th century, the understanding of witchcraft among Danish lay judges corresponded to popular beliefs. Focus remained on malevolent magic, and the diabolical pact was rarely introduced until after the verdict, when torture was initiated. To the Roman Inquisition, the pact with the devil, namely the implicit pact, was crucial when sentencing the illiterate villagers, since it made it possible to incorporate the offender into a learned theological system of ideas.     

When Torture is a Duty: The Murder of Imam Yapa Kaseng and the Challenge of Accountability in Thailand

Abstract

On 19 March 2008, Imam Yapa Kaseng was arrested in Narathiwat in southern Thailand and detained as a suspected insurgent by Special Task Force 39 under the provisions of martial law and the Emergency Decree on Public Administration in an Emergency Situation (hereafter Emergency Decree). Two days after his arrest, he died in the custody of the army. On 25 December 2008, the Narathiwat Provincial Court ruled that “the cause of death is that the deceased was physically assaulted by state officials … while he was in the custody of soldiers who were performing their civil service duties”. This ruling is paradoxical: Thai state officials are named as responsible for a death in custody, yet torture is categorised as a “duty”. Since the ruling, Imam Yapa’s family has pursued criminal, civil and internal state methods of redress, but the case has been stalled and the responsible state officials have not been held accountable. In response, I challenge this paradox by reading the inquest decision in light of both relevant national and international legal instruments and the testimonies given during the hearings. Drawing on the testimonies given during the inquest hearings, I construct an alternative narrative of suffering and state accountability.     

HISTORY AND INCOMPLETENESS

Vera Schwarcz's Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden examines the moral, philosophical, and historical meanings of a garden built by a Manchu Chinese prince, subsequently destroyed by British imperialists, commandeered by Red Guard radicals, and finally transformed into the grounds of an art museum. Reading Singing Crane Garden in the context of Schwarcz's previous writings on Chinese intellectuals and Jewish traditions, as well as insights provided by critical philosophers and geographers, this essay explores the moral and ethical dimensions of locating history in specific "emplacements". The argument begins by examining the phenomenology of place articulated by Edward Casey, weaves through discussions of Chinese spatiality, embodiment, and garden aesthetics, and comments on Schwarcz's study of broken monuments and stele through comparisons with Classical Chinese writers and the contemporary American poet Louise Glück. Comparisons are made between the destruction of the garden by the British forces of James Elgin, the murder of the journalist Thomas Bowlby, and the purging, imprisonment, torture, and brutality against scholars and intellectuals by the Red Guards under Mao. The essay closes with commentaries on Schwarcz's reflections concerning continuing global atrocities, and new insights into the ways that understanding landscape architecture as a form of history can bring meaning to questions of memory, loss, and the desire to evoke unrecoverable experiences.     

‘Likewise no one shall be tortured’

The article deals with judicial torture, which was prohibited in the Danish legal system in the early modern period, essentially focussing upon the time from the Lutheran Reformation in 1536 to the introduction of a comprehensive statute book for the entire kingdom in 1683. The author’s perspective is comparative, especially looking for parallels and contrasts in Sweden during approximately the same period, but to some extent also including the case of England. The common feature of the three kingdoms is that they were outside the regions governed by the Romano-canonical ius commune.

The article is based upon an analysis both of Danish legislation relating to torture and of the limited number of cases in which torture was applied, in most of these cases in contravention of current legislation. The author concludes that if 16th- and 17th-century Denmark saw extremely little use of torture, the main reasons are: in the first place, an internal political climate that was far more stable and peaceful than in Sweden and England, both of which were affected by dynastic rivalries and succession crises during this period; secondly, the fact that commissions of inquisition with extraordinary judicial powers were not used in Denmark also contributes to the Danish development.     

Australia,US torture and the power of international law

ABSTRACT

Australia cooperated extensively with the George W. Bush administration during the ‘war on terror.’ However, in doing so, Australia failed to condemn, and in some instances, condoned US torture and detention programs. Does Australia’s conduct demonstrate a failure of international law and human rights to constrain Australia’s actions? Although the Howard government was heavily criticised for failing to uphold human rights in the fight against terrorism, international law was not forgotten. This article argues that international law shaped Australia’s cooperation with the US. Australia strategically used international laws to legitimise its cooperation with the US in the face of evidence of US torture. International law was not dismissed to pursue national security interests but used to legitimise Australia’s security policies.