Giorgio Agamben's lessons and limitations in confronting the problem of genocide

Bibliographic Data

ID12893264
AuthorsHannes Gerhardt (0000-0003-2354-5305, University of West Georgia, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume7
Issue1
Pages5-17
Publication date2011-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Global Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-9626 • E-ISSN: 1744-9634
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17449626.2011.556658
OpenAlexW2070654741
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

In this paper, I work through the possible contours of an anti-genocide based on a framework informed by the work of Giorgio Agamben. Such a framework posits the inherent need to circumvent sovereign power within any form of normative activism. To begin, I show how the nascent anti-genocide movement promotes an ideal in which ‘Western’ states, particularly the USA, accept the global responsibility to protect persecuted life beyond national boundaries. Using Agamben, I argue that this vision also entails an acceptance of a sovereign framework for the valuation of life, thus failing to confront the inherent power of the sovereign to condemn life in the first place. I then highlight the limitations that Agamben's ontology places on us in dealing with this inherent problem within the sovereign-subject relationship. By positing an alternative ontology, I suggest the possibility of establishing communities of solidarity that challenge the sovereign's self-ascribed role as the absolute valuator of life. Counter to Agamben, I argue that the basis for such communities could be a dedication to the universal sacredness of human life, which is maintained independently of, and in challenge to, sovereign power. Keywords: genocidesovereign powerAgambenhumanismtransnational solidarity Notes The question of whether Darfur counts as an example of genocide is a complicated one and beyond the scope of this paper. Of importance in this case is the fact that massive state-sponsored humanitarian transgressions occurred that were seen by the anti-genocide movement as requiring some form of foreign intervention. Ignatieff, now the leader of the Liberal Party in Canada, was at one time director of the Car Center for Human Rights Policy, where he collaborated with leading the anti-genocide activist Samantha Power. Rasch Citation(2007) relates Agamben's ontological focus to the problem of the law of the excluded middle, in which a ‘law seems to include itself within the set it adjudicates’. Such a situation results, as Russel and Whitehead concluded, in a ‘vicious circle fallacy’ (p. 93). Indeed, it is doubtful that Agamben would even recognize the concepts of mutual respect and care as in any way relevant to the ever immanent and irreparable world of the coming community. Yet it is this abstractness that, I contend, makes Agamben's ethics almost impossible to implement in the non-utopic world we still live in

Environmental ethics · Genocide · Human rights · Humanitarian intervention · International community · Law and economics · Normative · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Responsibility to Protect · Sociology · Solidarity · Sovereign state · Sovereignty · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · War, Ethics, and Justification

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