Event Date: October 5, 2023 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: FSS 4004, 120 University Private, University of Ottawa

Presented by CIPS 

In December 2021, The New York Times released close to 1,400 files that document how the US military assesses allegations of civilian deaths and injuries. Most of these files document responses to individual allegations, and the vast majority of allegations were found to be “not credible,” usually because the evidence was deemed insufficient or too unspecific. On the basis of a systematic analysis of a sample of files, we argue that this bureaucratic process of dismissing allegations of civilian harm shows imperial ignorance: a reluctance or refusal to seek out knowledge that is based on (and furthers) imperial relationships of domination.

Speakers:

Christiane Wilke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. She received her PhD in Political Science from the New School for Social Research in New York City and has served as the managing editor of the Canadian Journal of Law and Society. Christiane’s research on state violence and memory has been published in a range of journals and books (in English, Spanish, and German). Her current SSHRC-funded research project analyzes the processes of counting and accounting for civilian casualties from US military airstrikes in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. 

Helyeh Doutaghi is a doctoral candidate in Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. Prior to her doctoral studies, she completed her LLM in Transnational Law at King’s College London. Helyeh’s research explores the intersections of economic coercive measures, imperialism, and critical approaches to international law. She is the co-chair of the International People’s Tribunal on US Imperialism. Her work has appeared in Leiden Journal of International Law, The Conversation, rabble.ca, Black Agenda Report, and others.

Hijaab Yahya is an MA candidate at the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. Their research synthesizes inquiries from sociolegal, anti-colonial, and queer migration scholarship, composing projects that attempt to unsettle colonial-capitalistic narratives on belonging, nation-building, and statal imaginaries. Hijaab is currently completing their MA thesis, which explores the intersections of forced migration and displacement, global rights regimes, and access to health. Their thesis collates questions that critique political modernity, nationhood, and liberal rights regimes, exploring their interactions with the right to health through the experiences of undocumented refugees from Afghanistan in Northwest Pakistan.

Chair:

Nisha Shah is an Associate Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her research interests are in the areas of international relations, international security, and political geography, with a particular interest in the history of science and technology in world politics. Her current project, Calibrating Lethality, traces the history of the ethics of killing in war through the design and development of weapons. She is currently a co-editor of The Review of International Studies.