The “Criminal Enemy Law” Doctrine and the Idea of Counter-terrorism : The Development and Circulation of a Dogmatic Legal Undertaking

Despite the war rhetoric surrounding the fight against terrorism from the outset, police and judicial institutions have nonetheless implemented counterterrorist policies that follow norms and procedures categorizing terrorism as a crime and subordinating this fight to the principles of the rule of law. Yet, increasingly, studies show that, nowadays, counterterrorism radically exonerates itself from the constraints of the rule of law by considering terrorists “enemies” rather than “criminals.” To expound on this shift, we will study the genesis and the circulation of the so-called doctrine of “criminal enemy law.” In doing so, we will not only outline a sociological analysis of a dogmatic legal enterprise, we will also think about the current limitations of the critique of counter-terrorist reason in the most recent period.