Atrocity now operates within the law through its spelled-out specifications

Evidence

What is most surprising is that this could still come as a surprise. The greatest crime lies not in an open flouting of the law but in the recesses of its sovereign application. This ordinary military atrocity lies well within the law, and except under the most imperative conditions, it does not have to emerge. Most of the time it does not need to. Contemporary forms of atrocity are hugely legalistic. They are the rule rather than the exception, not so much because the law has been suspended, but rather because it has been spelled out in accordance with the interests involved to the point where it capitulates with scant resistance. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 680

Categorization

• XREF: This is the reader’s ‘neither war as we know it nor peace’ — a legalized atrocity regime. — connects to: Contemporary wartime atrocity is legalistic, achieved through the law’s own application.; Proportionality’s incalculability serves to legitimize the deaths it governs; Automated targeting thresholds centralize atrocity into a single parameter-setting decision. (+6 more)

Related

• Contemporary wartime atrocity is legalistic, achieved through the law’s own application. (similarity 0.92)
• Modern atrocity operates inside the law rather than through its suspension. (similarity 0.84)
• Military atrocity originated in a fixed threshold, not soldier error (similarity 0.79)
• Proportionality’s incalculability serves to legitimize the deaths it governs (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Formalism is a central and distinctive feature of law #expands (0.70) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 54
• Confinement of sanctioned violence to places was meant to circumscribe it #complicates (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 252
• The civilian penal code aimed to terrify subjects into submission rather than reform them #complicates (0.60)
• Subtler punishment masked sovereign power rather than making it more humane #complicates (0.55)
• Invisibility from retaliation confers power to act with impunity. #complicates (0.50) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 342