Kendel, Hanns B (2016) The Terror Court Assemblage: two case studies from India. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/26679 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. The Terror Court Assemblage – Two Case Studies from India Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD in Law SOAS, University of London Hanns B Kendel 2016 1 i. Abstract The challenge of defining terrorism has long preoccupied domestic and international lawyers alike. The rising presence of the terrorist on the global stage has muddled the lines between security, politics and law leaving the courts to solve intricate puzzles and maintain delicate balances. All the while people and states have engaged in ever more heated arguments and ever more stringent policies to tackle a phenomenon the heart of which remains opaque. Presupposing definitions as linguistic/legal reflections of essential realities is misleading and conceals the role played by legal processes in creating terrorist realities. Developing a theoretical and methodological toolkit drawing on Assemblages and Actor Network Theory this thesis traces the stabilisation of two concrete terrorists through a Terror Court Assemblage (TCA). Deploying a slow ethnographic method of tracing actors through interviews, participant observation and judgment analysis the argument is that the terrorist is made through intricate and contingent processes of stabilisation and choreography. When successful the choreography of actors in the TCA produces a naturalised terrorist whose participation in the carrying of the concept of terrorism is crucial. Against a backdrop of fuzzy, heterogeneous and fluid relations the terrorist emerges out of the successful Terror Court Assemblage as a stable and very real (arte)fact articulated by a smooth chain of reference. Understanding the terrorist as a processually stabilised entity made to speak by an intricate TCA does nothing in itself to diminish the impact of terrifying incidents. However tracing the terrorist as a product of judicial processes and translations rather than as their input permits a critical appraisal of debates surrounding agreed definitions of terrorism as red herrings and opens new vantage points on where intervention is most promising. 3 ii. Table of Contents i. Abstract ....................................................................................................................... 3 ii. Table of Contents ................................................................................................... 4 iii. Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... 9 iv. Table of Statutes .................................................................................................. 11 From India ........................................................................................................................... 11 From the Rest of the World ........................................................................................... 11 United Nations Security Council Resolutions .......................................................... 11 v. Table of Cases ........................................................................................................ 12 Cases From India ............................................................................................................... 12 Not Published in Print: ................................................................................................... 13 Nasir Sessions Court: .................................................................................................................. 13 Nasir High Court: .......................................................................................................................... 13 Aftab Sessions Court: .................................................................................................................. 13 Aftab High Court: .......................................................................................................................... 13 Kasab Sessions Court: ................................................................................................................. 14 Chapter 1 - Introduction ......................................................................................... 15 1.1 Field Diary Entry: 20/03/13 10:00 ..................................................................... 15 1.2 A Few Preliminary Remarks ............................................................................................ 15 1.3 Field Diary Entry: 20/03/13 10:15 ..................................................................... 16 1.4 Context ....................................................................................................................................... 17 1.5 Field Diary Entry: 20/03/13 10:30 ..................................................................... 19 1.6 Argument .................................................................................................................................. 20 1.7 Field Diary Entry: 20/03/13 10:45 ..................................................................... 24 1.8 Reader Relevance .................................................................................................................. 25 1.9 Field Diary Entry: 20/03/13 11:00 ..................................................................... 26 1.10 Literature Relevance ......................................................................................................... 27 1.11 Field Diary Entry: 20/03/13 11:15 ................................................................... 31 1.12 Methodological Relevance .............................................................................................. 31 1.13 Field Diary Entry: 20/03/13 11:30 ................................................................... 33 1.14 Plan ........................................................................................................................................... 33 1.16 Field Diary Entry: 20/03/13 11:45 ................................................................... 36 1.17 Wider Outlook & Link Chapter II ................................................................................. 36 4 Chapter 2 – Assemblage Thinking and the Terror Court Assemblage ................................................................................................................. 38 2.1 Terrorist Assemblages ............................................................................................. 38 2.2 Actor Network Theory ............................................................................................. 39 2.2.1 Relational Materiality and the Anchoring Chain of Reference ...................... 39 2.2.2 Performativity and Vincula Juris ................................................................................. 41 2.2.3 Translation ........................................................................................................................... 43 2.2.4 Relational Materiality and Performativity Translated ...................................... 46 2.2.5 Critiques and Limitations of ANT ............................................................................... 50 2.3 Totalities and Assemblages ................................................................................... 56 2.3.1 Relations of Interiority and Exteriority ................................................................... 57 2.4 The Tools Of The Assemblage ............................................................................... 59 2.4.1 Territorialisation ............................................................................................................... 59 2.4.2 Coding/Decoding ............................................................................................................... 61 2.5 The Window on the Assemblage – Last Stop before the Terror Court Assemblage ............................................................................................................. 62 2.5.1 Emergent Properties ........................................................................................................ 63 2.5.2 Material Components ...................................................................................................... 65 2.5.3 Expressive Components ................................................................................................. 65 2.5.4 Irreducible and Decomposable ................................................................................... 65 2.5.5 What Assemblages Don’t Do and Why They Matter After All ........................ 66 2.6 The Terror Court Assemblage ..............................................................................