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Hussain analyses the uses and the history of a range of emergency powers, such as the suspension of habeas corpus and the use of military tribunals. His study focuses on British colonialism in India from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century to demonstrate how questions of law and emergency shaped colonial rule, which in turn affected the place of colonialism in modern law, depicting the colonies not as passive recipients but as agents in the interpretation and delineation of Western ideas and practices.
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The Jurisprudence of Emergency
Law, Meaning, and Violence The scope of Law, Meaning, and Violence is defined by the wide-ranging scholarly debates signaled by each of the words in the title. Those debates have taken place among and between lawyers, anthropologists, political theorists, sociologists, and historians, as well as literary and cultural critics. This series is intended to recognize the importance of such ongoing conversations about law, meaning, and violence as well as to encourage and further them. Series Editors:
Martha Minow, Harvard Law School Elaine Scarry, Harvard University Austin Sarat, Amherst College
Narrative, Violence, and the Law: The Essays of Robert Cover, edited by Martha Minow, Michael Ryan, and Austin Sarat Narrative, Authority, and Law, by Robin West The Possibility of Popular Justice: A Case Study of Community Mediation in the United States, edited by Sally Engle Merry and Neal Milner Legal Modernism, by David Luban Surveillance, Privacy, and the Law: Employee Drug Testing and the Politics of Social Control, by John Gilliom Lives of Lawyers: Journeys in the Organizations of Practice, by Michael J. Kelly Unleashing Rights: Law, Meaning, and the Animal Rights Movement, by Helena Silverstein Law Stories, edited by Gary Bellow and Martha Minow The Powers That Punish: Prison and Politics in the Era of the “Big House,” 1920–1955, by Charles Bright Law and the Postmodern Mind: Essays on Psychoanalysis and Jurisprudence, edited by Peter Goodrich and David Gray Carlson Russia’s Legal Fictions, by Harriet Murav Strangers to the Law: Gay People on Trial, by Lisa Keen and Suzanne B. Goldberg Butterfly, the Bride: Essays on Law, Narrative, and the Family, by Carol Weisbrod The Politics of Community Policing: Rearranging the Power to Punish, by William Lyons Laws of the Postcolonial, edited by Eve Darian-Smith and Peter Fitzpatrick Whispered Consolations: Law and Narrative in African American Life, by Jon-Christian Suggs Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, by Ann Arnett Ferguson Pain, Death, and the Law, edited by Austin Sarat The Limits to Union: Same-Sex Marriage and the Politics of Civil Rights, by Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller From Noose to Needle: Capital Punishment and the Late Liberal State, by Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities, by Gad Barzilai The Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law, by Nasser Hussain
The Jurisprudence of Emergency Colonialism and the Rule of Law
Nasser Hussain
The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2003 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid-free paper 2006
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hussain, Na