'John Reynolds has written a book of immense importance in at least three distinct areas of law: legal history, international law and comparative law. The level of detail, the theoretical basis and the ability to display the link between historical eras and disparate territories demonstrate conclusively the origins of emergency law in the colonial experience, a critically important legacy that he documents in magisterial fashion. Reynolds grounds his book firmly in the camp of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), which serves his principal mission of discussing the racism, imperialism and colonialism at the heart of emergency law. It is hard to overstate the importance of Reynolds' intervention. Empire, Emergency, and International Law is the corrective to the ahistorical and wrong-headed debate we have been subject to for far too long. It is an indispensable book that should serve as a frame of reference for any study on the law of emergency.' Wadie Said, Journal of Conflict & Security Law
Foreword; Prologue; Part I. Traditions of the Oppressed: 1. Emergency, colonialism and third world approaches to international law; 2. Racialisation and states of emergency; 3. Emergency doctrine: a colonial account; Part II. Empire's Law: 4. Emergency derogations and the international human rights project; 5. Kenya: a 'purely political' state of emergency; 6. The margin of appreciation doctrine: colonial origins; Part III. The Colonial Present: 7. Palestine: a 'scattered, shattered space of exception'?; 8. Australia: racialised emergency intervention; 9. International law, resistance and 'real' states of emergency; Bibliography.