ABSTRACT
Something happened to international law between 2004 and 2009. It happened in fits and starts and was largely unforeseen. At various moments during that period, classified legal memoranda were released that analyzed and sought to affirm the legality of the United States’ programme of detention, interrogation and surveillance in connection with global anti-terrorism initiatives and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through these memos’ release, international law encountered itself and found the encounter troubling. This chapter explores prospects for deciding to name that encounter an ‘event’. It does so with regard to the work of Alain Badiou (Badiou 2007). Nonetheless, this chapter’s probing of the ‘evental’ potential of the torture memos’ release seeks to adopt a perspective internal to the international legal situation of which it is part. That is, it will remain, more or less, within the vocabulary of international law by way of preventing the passage of a ‘philosopher king’ (Badiou) being received as one or other exit route out of the discipline’s troubles.
