Description
The British military has a long and turbulent relationship with human rights. There is a rich body of literature exploring the many ambiguities and contradictions that arise when considering the universalistic principles of human rights within an institution predicated upon violent forms of national protection. Discussions of the military’s interaction with human rights often centre around the supposed encroachment of civilian laws and norms upon military spheres, particularly during combat.
Turning away from the obvious spaces of war and violence, this paper instead examines how human rights are encountered within the more ‘mundane’ context of the Service Justice System. Drawing upon observations of court martial trials and interviews with those working in the field of military justice, this paper asks what the particular struggles for rights in non-operational contexts can tell us about the workings of military power.
By exploring which stories are written in and out of the courtroom, this paper argues that, although linked, encounters with rights in the Service Justice System do not map neatly onto ‘global’ human rights principles. Instead, these encounters illuminate the messy, unbounded, and ill-defined ways in which value is attached to particular conceptions of the ‘human subject’ over others within a military context.
