Law's wars: the fate of the rule of law in the US ‘war on terror’; Law's trials: the performance of legal institutions in the US ‘war on terror’

Richard Abel is an eminent scholar of the sociology of law, who grew up during South Africa's apartheid regime (and it shows). In Law's wars and Law's trials readers are offered a detailed examination of the response of American institutions to the ‘war on terror’ (dutifully awarded scare quote marks). To an outsider, the exercise is fascinating—and alarming. At its centre is American law, though Abel does not confine himself to the language of the US constitution and its interpretation by the US Supreme Court, as for instance crisply expounded in Edward S. Corwin's classic introductory work, The constitution and what it means today. Instead, in Law's wars an introductory chapter sums up the essence of the concept of the rule of law, together with ‘research questions’ about the role of the courts (not only the Supreme Court but the lower federal courts where so much litigation has occurred); of the Executive branch of government, including successive US presidents; and of legislators, the press, whistle-blowers and ‘civil society’. Providing material for addressing these questions, there follow chapters on Abu Ghraib (the notorious detention centre in Iraq), Guantánamo Bay, interrogation methods, electronic surveillance and the laws of warfare (as applying to targeted killing by drones). One's first reaction is to the noise on both sides of the debate, to clichés and insults substituting for informed and reasoned argument. Much more interesting, though, is Abel's subverting of the commonly held idea that there are clearly marked ‘sides’ in America over what happened in those areas, or in denying that it happened at all. Government lawyers, for instance, were often serial offenders (for example, the general counsel to the Department of Defense dismissing what happened at Abu Ghraib as ‘the work of the night shift’). Yet armed services lawyers tended to respect the rule of law. Differences did not always follow party allegiances. By dividing chapters between the presidencies of Bush and Obama, the latter's hesitancy becomes apparent (e.g. pp. 204–205). Yet challenging enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) in the face of assertions that they worked, the late Senator John McCain, a Republican, declared: ‘Ultimately, this is more than a utilitarian debate … It is about who we are’.