Interrogating state vigilantism and international responsibility in the context of Southeast Asia's war on drugs

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The global war on drugs has been catastrophic for human rights, fuelling organised crime, corruption, undermining rights to health, and leading to thousands of extrajudicial killings (Human Rights Watch, 2020). The Philippines has recently brought these shortcomings of the war on drugs into sharp relief; as many as 27,000 people have been extrajudicially killed by security forces acting in an 'unofficial' vigilante capacity since 2016. UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary killings Agnes Callamard has highlighted how the policies of the war on drugs 'foster a regime of impunity, invigorating the rule of violence rather than the rule of law'(ABS-CBN, 2018). However, as Bateson (2020, p.6) notes, political science and by extension International Relations has largely neglected to 'take seriously the role of the state in enabling, fostering, and perpetrating vigilantism'. Consequently, scrutinising the role that states play in 'invigorating the role of violence' as part of the war on drugs is essential and timely in order to prevent further global human rights abuses. My PhD project compared the Philippine drug war led by President Rodrigo Duterte and that undertaken by Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2003, where as many as 3200 people were murdered by the state. As part of this, the PhD project analysed how both Thaksin and Duterte orchestrated and legitimised violence, whilst seeking to build political support for their campaigns. In response to a lacuna in the literature, the PhD developed the concept of 'state vigilantism', which it argues is where the state murders large numbers of people, whilst presenting it as a vigilante style response of ordinary society. The fellowship has two main aims, which will allow me to build an academic career that engages with and informs policy. Firstly, the fellowship will allow me to make a significant contribution to understandings of state violence through the publication of two articles in high-ranking journals and presentations at academic conferences. As well as the two articles which draw upon my PhD, the fellowship will also allow me to undertake a small amount of new research in partnership with my mentor Dr Adrian Gallagher to build upon our already co-published work (Gallagher et al, 2020). This journal article will examine the role that civil society actors play in ensuring human rights norms are respected in the Philippines, and how they engage foreign and international authorities to do this. The second aim of the fellowship is to build connections with policymakers and non-academic audiences. I envisage my research being of interest of to two broad types of NGO groups- those that work on the human rights issues relating to the war on drugs, and those which work on mass atrocity crimes. My research on the legitimisation of drug war killings will be provided to relevant civil society organisations and NGOs to inform their campaigning and advocacy. As my mentor, Dr Adrian Gallagher works closely with Protection Approaches, a London based NGO who work on identity-based violence. They oversee a civil society network of over 25 partner organisations, so the work will be presented to these partners. As part of the dissemination process, I will also work to develop relationships that I cultivated during my PhD with civil society organisations and NGOs, whose work relates to the war on drugs and human rights. In order to cultivate closer links with these two groups, I will organise a one-day symposium on state killing and the R2P. Both academic and practitioners outlined above will be invited, and presenters at the symposium will be asked to contribute an article to the Global R2P Journal special issue mentioned above. Overall, this post-doctoral fellowship will enable me to become a full time academic whilst bringing a much-needed focus on the role of state violence in the war on drugs into International Relations.