Legalizing lawlessness: on Giorgio Agamben's state of exception

This review essay examines in some detail Giorgio Agamben’s recent State of Exception, his third in a series of books that reconstruct sovereignty using a range of interdisciplinary and critical tools. Engaging with Agamben’s text on its own terms – rather than focusing on the potential deficiencies of an approach that eschews standard doctrinal and empirical research – the essay seeks to distil a set of conceptual and analogical perspectives that might help interpret the significance of the present rise of emergency regimes. The essay concludes by exploring whether Agamben’s work might enrich legal inquiry, despite its often alien tenor, by reviewing some recent cases in the UK and the US involving exceptional measures.