The necropolitics of military amnesty: Peacebuilding and Othering in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Necropolitics, as described by Achille Mbembe, is the sovereign’s capacity to dictate who may live and who must die. In its delineation of which bodies can be killed and which bodies must not be killed, necropolitics is the framework through which governments assign value to human life that justifies killing in the name of the greater good. Proposed legislation in the UK Parliament from 2021 suggested the state intended to limit prosecutions of British service personnel for killings that occurred during Operation Banner, the UK military operation in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2007. Interrogating the employment of military amnesty, we discuss the ways amnesty can maintain necropolitical organizations by working to reaffirm antagonistic relations between peacebuilding parties despite claims that it is a reconciliatory measure. Through a necropolitical lens, we examine historical approaches to military prosecutions by the UK alongside current proposals for amnesty over conflict-related homicides committed in Northern Ireland. Interrogating peacebuilding and reconciliation efforts made in the UK to address the conflict in Northern Ireland, we assert that the calls for amnesty remain under the same necropolitical organization that facilitated the Troubles to begin with and maintain narratives that Other Northern Ireland from Britain.