Sonic lawfare: on the jurisprudence of weaponised sound

ABSTRACT

This article suggests that the growing literature on sonic warfare has not been as sensitive to the work of law and legal institutions as it might be, and that it is exemplary in this respect of a lot of work in sound studies more generally. Just as jurisprudence must learn to think sonically, sound studies must endeavour to listen jurisprudentially. Across a series of examples – some well-known, others less so – the article draws out some key elements of the jurisprudence of weaponised sound. It shows how law is necessarily implicated in the story of sonic warfare, and not just insofar as it is prohibitive or emancipatory. Law doesn’t simply oppose violence; it authorises and channels it, and increasingly towards the acoustic. In this respect, it is doing more than just expressing or clearing a path for the expression of other forms of power. Law itself is a form of power that, by means of complex institutional architectures across multiple jurisdictions, crucially shapes our sonic worlds.

KEYWORDS:

• Sonic warfare
• thanatosonics
• music torture
• law
• jurisprudence
• lawfare

Acknowledgment

Much of this essay was written during a visiting fellowship at the Program for Science, Technology and Society at the Harvard Kennedy School for Government. My sincerest thanks to Sheila Jasanoff for being such a generous host and mentor during my time there, and to my fellow fellows whose comments and camaraderie were invaluable. I would like to thank Arnulf Lorca, Lys Kulamadayil, Karen Crawley, Tom Andrews, Adil Khan and both reviewers for their comments on various drafts. Finally, thanks to Joel Stern for the opportunity to present some of these ideas publicly and for the ongoing collaboration and friendship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I am thinking particularly of the work of Mladen Dolar, Peter Szendy, Lily Hirsch, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, M. J. Grant and Susan Schuppli, who have all been particularly explicit about drawing out the complex relations between law, sound and listening: Dolar (2006); Szendy and Nancy (2008); Hirsch (2012); Abu Hamdan (2014); Grant (2012); Schuppli (2014).

2. I prefer Steve Goodman’s phrase over other possible candidates to describe the field of inquiry – in particular, Daughtry’s related terms “thanatosonics” and “belliphonics” – because it is deliberately broad. Despite important differences in how they conceive of sound’s weaponisation, Goodman’s term, I think, is intended to cover everything captured by Daughtry’s, but also sound’s capacity for more subtle forms of intimidation, violence and control which Daughtry has been less interested in exploring: Goodman (2012); Daughtry (2014, 2015).

3. See also Volcler (2013), esp. chap. 1.

4. For an earlier but comprehensive study, see Humes, Joellenbeck, and Durch (2006).

5. Frow (1999), discussing the silent “Separate Prison” at Port Arthur, in what is now known as Tasmania. The prison was built in 1848–1849, based on principles derived from Jeremy Bentham’s famous writings on the panopticon.

6. By which he means peacetime, since for many people, war actually is the everyday, as Goodman is well aware: Goodman (2012, 5).

7. These are deliberate euphemisms which render biopolitics and physical harm as mere communication for politico-legal advantage.

8. Mosquito Anti-Loitering Device: see Anti-Loitering Devices (2018).

9. Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.

10. See the ICRC’s “IHL Database” (2018).

11. As mandated by Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, art. 36.

12. State Response: HCJ 10,265/05 (submitted to the Israeli High Court of Justice, unpublished). See also Lieblich (2014, 198).

13. Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, art. 49(1).

14. Arguing, say, a breach of Article 7 (the prohibition on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment), Article 9(1) (right to liberty and security), or Article 17 (right to freedom from arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, family and home): International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

15. It is normally assumed that music was not used in interrogation and torture practices in Northern Ireland but, based on new testimony, Grant suggests otherwise: Grant (2014, 18, n19).

16. “The Majority Report” in Report of the Committee of Privy Counsellors 1972, 1–7.

17. “The Minority Report” in Report of the Committee of Privy Counsellors 1972, 11–22.

18. US Reservations and Understandings Upon Ratification of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment: see “Declarations and Reservations” (2018).

19. US Reservations: see “Declarations and Reservations”.

20. This is where Suzanne Cusick (2008) – in her otherwise exemplary work on music torture – stops, appearing to take Lt. Col. Beaver’s position as authoritative.

21. Letter regarding “the views of our Office concerning the legality, under international law, of interrogation methods to be used … on captured al Qaeda operatives”: Yoo (2005), 218.

22. See “Declarations and Reservations”.

23. Executive Order 13,491: see http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=85669.

24. I am grateful to the reviewer for drawing my attention to this point.

25. Occupational Health and Safety Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1.

26. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, § 7.

27. R.R.O (1990), Reg. 926: Equipment and Use of Force, § 14.

28. Joint Committee on Human Rights 2008–2009, 24, citing the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 and the Control of Pollution Act 1974.

29. Mosquito Anti-Loitering Device: see “Anti-Loitering Devices”.

30. For orthodox accounts of law as a system of rules, see Hart (1994); Kelsen (1967), (Raz 1980). For a reading of this orthodoxy in relation to the heretical realist and critical legal traditions, which framed themselves in contrast to it, see Manderson (2001).

31. On lawfare, see also Kittrie (2016), Luban (2008), Morrissey (2011).

32. See also Lorca (2012).

33. This precise point is made in relation to drones in Lewis and Crawford (2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James E. K. Parker

James E. K. Parker, is the Director of a research programme on Law, Sound and the International at the Institute for International Law and the Humanities, Melbourne Law School. His research focuses on the relations between law, sound and listening, with a particular emphasis on international criminal law, the law of war and privacy. In 2017, James’ monograph, Acoustic Jurisprudence: Listening to the Trial of Simon Bikindi (OUP 2015) was awarded the Penny Pether Prize (ECR) for scholarship in law, literature and the humanities. He is currently working on the socio-legal history of eavesdropping and on the law and politics of machine listening. James has been a visiting fellow at the Program for Science, Technology and Society at the Harvard Kennedy School for Government, a faculty member at the Harvard Law School Institute for Global Law and Policy Workshop, and is an associate curator at Liquid Architecture, an Australian organisation for artists working with sound.