ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of necropolitics in order to understand the relationship between people seeking asylum and the modern state in international law. The concept of necropolitics, as theorised by Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe and then taken up in critical migration and border studies scholarship in the humanities, provides a useful diagnostic for understanding the colonial history and contemporary form of state border regimes that harm migrants and refugees as well as international law’s role in authorising this structural violence. It allows for apprehending refugee deaths not as aberrations, but rather as intrinsic to how contemporary international law arranges political space and legal order, with international law’s principal subject, the modern territorial state, premised upon the logic and operation of the border. The chapter focuses on one specific ‘border encounter’ between the Australian state and refugees detained on Manus Island to offer two lines of inquiry – one historical, one political – for understanding the role of international law in enabling and perpetuating state violence towards refugees. In conclusion, the chapter suggests that such analyses offer critical potential for international lawyers to re-orient notions of community, security and belonging in international law towards less violent forms of co-existence and co-habitation.
