Desmond Manderson, ‘Not Yet: Aboriginal People and the Deferral of the Rule of Law’, Arena, October 2009.

From the ‘War on Terror’ to Malaya and Pakistan the language of ‘emergency’ has been used to suspend legal principles. Closer to home, legislation enacted in August 2007 has profoundly changed the treatment of large numbers of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory in Australia argues Desmond Manderson

Manderson makes a pretty interesting argument here, linking Agamben’s idea of the state of exception, with a historical account of the selective extension – and deferral – of the rule of law to Australian Aboriginal people. Manipulating legal regimes to create and sustain juridical blind spots was an important strategy, he argues, before jumping to present day turmoil of contemporary political disaster, namely the Northern Territory Intervention, where he offers his solutions to the problem. These should not surprise readers of Arena too much.

What is surely interesting is his interest in historical trends and theory, before reaching these conclusions. The more of this the better.