The other side of the law

Discrimination and emergency powers

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6429317
AutoresJermaine Young (0000-0003-0187-735X, Howard University, autor de correspondencia), Clement Fatovic (0009-0008-0755-706X, Florida International University)
Año2024
Volumen25
Número1
Páginas33-57
Fecha de publicación2024-12-10
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal of Discrimination and the Law (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1358-2291 • E-ISSN: 2047-9468
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/13582291241307813
OpenAlexW4405228702
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas62

Emergency powers have always posed a threat to the rule of law, particularly standards of legality and respect for individual rights. Although system-wide impacts to legal norms and the rights of the general population continue to pose real dangers, we argue that the most egregious violations of the rule of law in liberal democratic societies in times of emergency now tend to be restricted to historically marginalized groups depicted as disorderly, dysfunctional, or pathological. As exemplified in official responses to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, reports of rampant child abuse in aboriginal communities in Australia’s Northern Territory, and high levels of homicide in Jamaica, emergency powers are often applied in discriminatory ways that reflect and reinforce existing disparities in race, gender, and class. Even when emergency measures are nominally adopted for the entire population, their application is often limited to highly specific geographical areas that place marginalized groups into “zones of otherness.” The result, we argue, is to establish a de facto system of legal pluralism that subjects subordinate groups to enhanced forms of regulation, surveillance, detention, and violence, but generally leaves established legal rules and protections intact for everyone else

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