The Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law

Description

Hussain analyses the uses and the history of a range of emergency powers, such as the suspension of habeas corpus and the use of military tribunals. His study focuses on British colonialism in India from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century to demonstrate how questions of law and emergency shaped colonial rule, which in turn affected the place of colonialism in modern law, depicting the colonies not as passive recipients but as agents in the interpretation and delineation of Western ideas and practices. Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Introduction: The Historical and Theoretical Background Chapter 2. The Colonial Concept of Law Chapter 3. The "Writ of Liberty" in a Regime of Conquest: Habeas Corpus and the Colonial Judiciary Chapter 4. Martial Law and Massacre: Violence and the Limit Conclusion A Postcolonial Postscript Appendix A The Administrative Structure of Justice in British India Appendix B The History of Nineteenth-Century Legal Codification in British India Notes Bibliography Index.