This chapter explains the epistemological and ontological positions of the book and clarifies the methodology used for this study. The chapter examines the linguistic turn in the social sciences and establishes the relation between reality and language. Influenced by the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, it argues that language is constitutive of reality and thus matters for how we understand the world. Second, the chapter excavates the role of language in securitisation theory to foreground the central argument about linguistic practice. Lastly, the chapter introduces three key linguistic aspects that play an important part in the book: strategic narratives, indirect speech acts and framing Islam as a non-security issue.

The international law of armed conflict grants rights and imposes duties upon the non-participants, which are known as neutrals and the relevant legal regime as neutrality. Occasionally it is conceded that in certain circumstances a neutral may offer assistance to one of the belligerents on the basis of benevolent neutrality. A neutral has the right to permit belligerent troops to take refuge in its territory, but must intern them and prevent them from taking any further part in the conflict. If the neutral is a party to the Prisoners of War Convention, their treatment, if interned, must at least equal that required for prisoners of war. Subject to any regulations imposed by their government, neutral nationals may continue trading with either or both belligerents, but the articles involved are liable to seizure as prize.

How being embodied shapes people’s experience of the world is an area of growing interest, with physical presentation understood as a resource in the production of identity and power. This chapter explores how the body, clothing and displays of emotion ‘spoke’ within courtrooms, shaping social and legal power relationships. Performances of dress, physical appearance and emotion could all be used to judge manly behaviour and character and so were implicated in the construction of justice. Men whose bodies or clothing suggested poverty undermined claims to a masculine character formed through respectability and a beautiful body. Eccentric men disrupted such norms, offering alternative readings of the male body. Through the press, such performances contributed to debates around Irish identity, civilisation and nationhood.

A non-international conflict has traditionally been one in which the governmental authorities of a state are opposed by groups within that state seeking to overthrow those authorities by force of arms. In accordance with the fundamental principle of customary international law concerning the independence of a sovereign authority, this type of conflict has traditionally been regarded as falling outside the ambit of international law. Apart from Article 3, common to the 1949 Conventions, the first major attempt to introduce international legal control of non-international conflicts by way of a statement of black-letter law is Protocol II, 1977, relating to the protection of victims of non-international conflicts. In non-international armed conflicts, as in those of an international character, civilians are to be protected against the dangers arising from the conflict.

The law of armed conflict has its origins in both customary and conventional law. Though the object of an armed conflict is to achieve victory over the adverse party with the least possible expenditure of men, resources and money, principles of humanity remain relevant. In conducting hostilities the opposing forces should be guided by three basic principles: necessity, humanity and chivalry. Perhaps the most significant international agreement relating to a specific weapon is the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol. Without specifying any particular weapon, in 1976 a Convention was adopted on the Prohibition of Military or any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques. It is forbidden to use starvation as a weapon against the civilian population, but it is lawful to take steps necessary to deprive the adverse party of his food supplies.

By the Middle Ages the power of the Church was such that it was able to forbid Christian knights from using certain weapons as hateful to God. In fact, the feudal knights were aware of what they knew as 'the law of chivalry'. The 'law of chivalry' was a customary code of chivalrous conduct that controlled the knight's affairs, which was enforced by arbitrators specially appointed or, in England and France, by Courts of Chivalry. Contrary to the Geneva Law is the law concerning means and methods of conducting actual military operations in armed conflict. This is known as Hague Law, although it had its origin in a conference of fifteen European states called in Brussels at the invitation of Czar Alexander II of Russia. Another instrument that seems to have been applied as expressing accepted law, even though it never received a single ratification, is the Declaration of London.

In 2014 Toronto, the first Canadian sanctuary city, reaffirmed its commitment to improving undocumented migrants’ access to programmes and services from city-funded agencies. However, research shows that official policy has not been consistently realised in practice. Service providers experience difficulties such as unfamiliarity with the needs of undocumented migrants and lack of formal organisational policy. Moreover, confusion still exists as to the nature of and extent to which municipal programmes cohere with federal/provincial law. Consequently, fear of arrest, detention, and removal from Canada still result in the marginalisation of undocumented migrants, and susceptibility to exploitation and abuse. This chapter provides a critical analysis of the operation of sanctuary city policy in the Greater Toronto Area. Using the theoretical framework of ‘local governance’, this chapter offers a reflection on the importance of the municipal context in crafting policy responses to the legal, economic, and social marginalisation of undocumented migrants. The chapter maps the nature and extent to which formal policy effectively protects the human rights of undocumented migrants. Drawing on research conducted from 2015 to 2016, the chapter explores the insights and perspectives of city officials, civil society organisations, and practitioners in the Greater Toronto Area.

The purpose of oratory had long been understood as moving the passions, a capacity that held special relevance for the culture of sensibility, which placed sympathy at the heart of communication. This chapter explores how lawyers used speech-making to make sympathetic engagements within the courtroom and to persuade listeners to their truth. Speech-making is a bodily practice and this chapter explores how lawyers’ bodies, voices and oratory skill became implicated in the making of manly character and so truth. As truth was produced through sympathetic exchange, emotion was placed at the heart of the legal system. Through the press, the model for manliness presented by lawyers was given public airing, making a claim to Irishness rooted in a polite education, the ability to speak well and to judge with sensibility.

This chapter introduces the main focus of the book, and discusses a range of current work exploring debates on migration, citizenship, and rights focused on sub-national spatial scales, including the urban, the neighbourhood, and the spaces of everyday life. The introduction thus examines some of the ways in which migration is experienced, politicised, and policed when framed as a concern for cities, communities, and everyday life, rather than purely for the policies, rhetoric, and imaginaries of the nation-state. The chapter works through three key bodies of work to explore this rescaling process and to set the framework for the rest of the collection: first, the increasing devolution of mechanisms of security and border enforcement to local levels, and to cities in particular, suggesting a growing governance of migration at the urban level; second, the growth of sanctuary movements across the Global North, from social movements and campaigns to the legal establishment of sanctuary cities; and third, the connections between cities and forms of irregular migrant activism that seek to contest the boundaries and nature of citizenship. In exploring these areas of recent debate, the introduction establishes the context for the collection’s two main parts – sanctuary cities and urban struggles.

This chapter introduces the study of the law of armed conflict by considering the nature and legality of war. The treatment of Napoleon served as a precedent for the policy adopted by the principal Allied and Associated Powers at the end of World War I when considering the treatment to be accorded to those responsible as authors of that war. A more definite attempt to render the war illegal is to be found in the Covenant of the League of Nations. The United States was not a member of the League, but by virtue of being among the victors in 1918 was an important power whose views could not be ignored. In 1946 the General Assembly at its first session adopted a resolution affirming 'the principles of international law recognised by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal'.

The concept of war crimes, with trial and condemnation of those committing them, is not new. From the time of the 'classical' fathers until the end of the nineteenth century there is little to comment upon with regard to the law concerned with war crimes. This was until the promulgation of the Lieber Code in 1863 by US President Abraham Lincoln. While international law permits national tribunals to try war criminals, these tribunals are established under national law according to the jurisdictional limits and procedure established by that law, although the definition of war crimes is usually that prescribed by international law. Many of the crimes described in the London Charter as war crimes or crimes against humanity are synonymous with those named as grave breaches in the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I.