In an open lecture on Wed 4 February, Dr. Ruth Blakeley will explore the development and operation of a global system for the rendition, secret detention and torture of terror suspects, a system which has its origins in George Bush’s ‘War on Terror’. The lecture will begin at 6pm in Rutherford Lecture Theater 1, The University of Kent.
Entitled, ‘Mapping the Global System of Rendition, Secret Detention and Torture in the War on Terror’ Dr Blakeley will argue that contrary to popular understanding, the global rendition system outlived the Bush administration. The Obama administration has continued to rely on rendition and secret detention as key counter-terrorism tools. But the global rendition system is a system in flux. Various pressures beyond the US government’s control have forced the US Executive and intelligence and defence services to make major changes to the global rendition system at key moments, in desperate attempts to maintain an extra-legal space that the US believes it needs to thwart threats to its interests.
The lecture will outline some of those key moments and will explain their implications for US and UK foreign policy, for the global governance of human rights, and for the victims of rendition, secret detention and torture. Reference will be made throughout the lecture to a key database compiled by Dr Blakeley and her research team. The database contains all flights known to have been or suspected of being involved in rendition. This dataset is key to understanding how the global rendition system operates and has evolved over the last decade, and has been crucial in providing evidence for litigation on behalf of victims at the European Court of Human Rights, the African Commission and the Guantánamo Bay military tribunals.
Dr Ruth Blakeley
Ruth joined the School in 2007. Her research focuses on the use of state violence and state terrorism, particularly by liberal democratic states. She is behind The Rendition Project [3], which aims to bring together and analyse the huge amount of data that exists about rendition, secret detention and torture in the ‘War on Terror’. Described by the Guardian [4] as ‘a ground-breaking research project which sheds unprecedented light on one of the most controversial secret operations of recent years’, the Rendition Project has produced the Rendition Flights Database and Interactive Map [5] which enables users to navigate their own way through the global rendition system.
Ruth is the author of State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South (London: Routledge, 2009), and has published articles on state terrorism and torture in various academic journals. She acted as academic consultant to investigative journalist John Pilger for his documentary War on Democracy [6], screened in UK cinemas and on ITV1 during 2007.