Abstract

State and police brutality around the globe in 2020 brought into sharp focus the role of legal apparatuses in causing death, particularly of black and Indigenous lives. Against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter (#BLM) events and protests, #endSARS in Nigeria and amid the ongoing fight against Aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia, the critique made by Isobell Coe in Nulyarimma v Thompson, the case that sought to have the crime of genocide and its impact as part of ongoing colonialism recognised in Australian law, is more urgent than ever. Following Coe’s critique that Australian law becomes complicit in genocide if it fails to hear Indigenous peoples protests, how do and how should legal thinkers engage with the system of Australian law especially in a climate where the direct link between settler-colonial legal infrastructures (courts, prisons, police and legislators) and the violation of Indigenous and black lives has been laid bare. A legal system lacking consent at its foundation and characterised in the present day by a refusal to hear and engage with its violent origin, while seeking to acquire consent retrospectively is nomocidal. Nomocide captures the function performed by all arms of the law in committing genocide in Australia. As such, the complicity and culpability of a system of law founded in non-consensual conditions must be reckoned with, without delay. This requires a willingness among scholars and practitioners of law to see it as deathly or nomocidal in order to begin addressing the colonial violence that stems from it.

摘要

2020 年全球国家和警察的暴行使法律机构在造成死亡，特别是在黑人和原住民生命中的作用成为焦点。在 Black Lives Matter (#BLM) 事件和抗议、#endSARS 在尼日利亚以及在澳大利亚与原住民在押期间死亡的持续斗争的背景下，Isobell Coe 在Nulyarimma v Thompson 案中提出的批评，试图将种族灭绝罪及其影响作为澳大利亚法律承认的正在进行的殖民主义的一部分的案件比以往任何时候都更加紧迫。Coe 批评澳大利亚法律如果未能听取土著人民的抗议，就会成为种族灭绝的同谋，法律思想家应该如何以及如何参与澳大利亚法律体系，特别是在定居者与殖民地法律基础设施（法院、监狱、警察和立法者），对土著和黑人生活的侵犯已经暴露无遗。一个在其基础上缺乏同意的法律制度，在今天的特点是拒绝听取和参与其暴力起源，同时寻求事后获得同意是杀戮性的。杀虫剂抓住了所有法律部门在澳大利亚实施种族灭绝中所发挥的作用。因此，必须毫不拖延地考虑建立在非自愿条件下的法律体系的共谋和罪责。这需要学者和法律从业者愿意将其视为致命的或杀戮的，以便开始解决由此产生的殖民暴力。