After getting rid of my lecture slides on the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) and new competition & consumer protection regime I'm reading Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict (Cornell University Press, 2010) edited by Peter Andreas & Kelly Greenhill, The Just City (Cornell University Press, 2010) and The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Princeton University Press, 2010) by Noah Feldman. Nothing if not eclectic, as Robert Hughes might say, although there is a common thread of concern for human rights and a commitment to intellectual rigour that I find appealing.
Andreas & Greenhill, foreshadowed recently in this blog, is a collection of scholarly essays on problematical data collection/interpretation in relation to law enforcement and policymaking. It is particularly impressive for its discussion of challenges - and abuses by politicians, officials, journalists and scholars - regarding human trafficking data and death tolls in crimes against humanity in Bosnia and Darfur. The book also contains an insightful essay by Sue Eckert & Thomas Biersteker on the measurement, or mismeasurement, of 'success' in countering terrorism. The book might usefully be a prescribed text in human rights, criminology and terrorism courses.
Fainstein, which I'm reading at the request of an urban policy friend - can't have too many friends, four-legged or otherwise, who are unfamiliar with LexisNexis and know not to ask how my Cases & Materials chapters are coming along - draws on Rawls and Nussbaum in articulating an approach to justice and urban development in postmodern cities, suggesting that we can base credible policy on three concepts of diversity, democracy and equity.
Feldman looks at the history of shari'a law, founding his analysis on an engagement with religious, historical and sociological literature (with judicious comments for example regarding Weber) and suggesting that the idea of a 'just legal system, one that administers the law fairly' is an understandable goal in a region dominated by kleptocratic, incompetent and often brutal oligarchies.
On Monday, after more marking, it is faculty 'show & tell' day ... I'll be presenting a paper (albeit a decaf lite version of a paper) on 'Technological Identity Gothic', critiquing 'magical unrealism' in statements from UK and Indian politicians and officials (eg here) regarding the national identity card regimes in those nations.
Tony Abbott has come to my rescue, with the announcement that the Coalition, if it wins tomorrow's election, will introduce a virtual national identity card. Apparently we cannot have too many national signifiers, with some form of welfare card to join the ubiquitous Tax File Number and Medicare Number in 'naming and claiming' most of the population. If that is the case the Coalition might care to study the recommendations of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, highlighted yesterday, regarding a statutory tort of breach of privacy. Bring the new number - or a bit of magic plastic - on, but embed that device within a coherent, positive and properly-enforced national privacy framework.
