TY - JOUR
T1 - Attack by Design: Australia’s Offshore Detention System and the Literature of Atrocity
AU - Mann-Kanowitz, Itamar Yossef
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - A great work of literature does more for international criminal justice than providing evidence. By couching the evidence in conceptual categories, literature can offer insights on how law should be interpreted. This review essay seeks to demonstrate this argument about legal interpretation through a reading of Behrouz Boochani’s much-acclaimed No Friend but the Mountains. In doing so, it seeks to offer a reflection on the significance of literary evidence authored by those subjected to atrocity. Boochani is far from being the first author whose work has enormous value both as literature and as testimony (an overlap that has been widely studied in the humanities and social sciences). Yet the relationship between the two is still seldom appreciated by lawyers and seldom appreciated for its value to legal theory. The essay aims to contribute to the latter discussion, specifically as it pertains to contemporary abuses against asylum seekers.
AB - A great work of literature does more for international criminal justice than providing evidence. By couching the evidence in conceptual categories, literature can offer insights on how law should be interpreted. This review essay seeks to demonstrate this argument about legal interpretation through a reading of Behrouz Boochani’s much-acclaimed No Friend but the Mountains. In doing so, it seeks to offer a reflection on the significance of literary evidence authored by those subjected to atrocity. Boochani is far from being the first author whose work has enormous value both as literature and as testimony (an overlap that has been widely studied in the humanities and social sciences). Yet the relationship between the two is still seldom appreciated by lawyers and seldom appreciated for its value to legal theory. The essay aims to contribute to the latter discussion, specifically as it pertains to contemporary abuses against asylum seekers.
U2 - 10.1093/ejil/chab019
DO - 10.1093/ejil/chab019
M3 - Article
SN - 0938-5428
VL - 32
SP - 309
EP - 326
JO - European Journal of International Law
JF - European Journal of International Law
IS - 1
ER -