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    Drug prohibition and the policing of warfare

    Koram, Kojo (2022) Drug prohibition and the policing of warfare. Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 13 (1), pp. 22-39. ISSN 21514372.

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    Abstract

    This article examines the shifting dynamics between policing and warfare as reflected in the War on Drugs over the twentieth century. Despite the UN’s international drug control treaties being written in language of humanitarianism, the drug prohibition that emerged from these laws exemplifies the growth of ‘New War’. The drug war, with its violent methods of armed combat, lethal force, incarceration, asset seizure and land dispossession, was a continuation of familiar warfare. But it also marks a shift away from the traditional structure of war, providing a key, often overlooked early example of how contemporary warfare blurs the lines between surveillance, policing and military action. Through an analysis of prohibition, this article points to a broader trend of war mutating from conflicts between rival sovereign states to the collective assault upon a threat or poison within the universal.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: "All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of scholarly citation, none of this work may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. For information address the University of Pennsylvania Press, 3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112."
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Drugs, Police, Warfare, Girard, Clausewitz, International law, humanitarianism
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Law School
    Depositing User: Kojo Koram
    Date Deposited: 15 Nov 2021 11:38
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 18:13
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/46620

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