Beschreibung
For the Bush administration 9/11 started a new kind of war.
In reaction to the attacks the president and his legal
advisors created the term unlawful enemy combatant in
addition to the Geneva Conventions’ distinction of
combatants and civilians. Alluding to international law, the
term suggests legality and seeks to legitimize a new kind of
detention, yet leading to the torture scandal and Guantanamo
Bay Detention Camp. This empirical study traces the term’s
development throughout the first year after 9/11 and reveals
the legitimation strategies for detainee treatment of the
Bush administration.
Dorte Hühnert is a research associate at the
Institute for Political Science at the University of
Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
