Perversions of Justice_ Indigenous Peoples and Anglo-american Law - Ward Churchill, Sharon Venne (2003).pdf

The United States is readily distinguishable from other countries, Chief Justice John Marshall opined in 1803, because it is "a nation of laws, not of men." In Perversions of Justice, Ward Churchill takes Marshall at his word, exploring through a series of 11 carefully crafted essays how the U.S. has consistently employed a corrupt from of legalism as a means of establishing colonial control and empire. Along the way, he demonstrates how this "nation of laws" has so completely subverted the law of nations that the current America-dominated international order ends up, like the U.S. -itself, functioning in a manner dia-metrically opposed to the ideals of freedom and democracy it professes to embrace.

By tracing the evolution of federal Indian law, Churchill is able to show how the premises set forth therein not only spilled over onto non-Indians in the U.S., but were also adapted for application abroad. The trajectory of America’s imperial logic can be followed all the way to the present New World Order in which "what we say goes" at the dawn of the third millennium.

About the Author
Ward Churchill has achieved an unparalleled reputation as a scholar-activist and analyst of indigenous issues. He is a Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, a leading member of AIM, and the author of numerous books, including A Little Matter of Genocide, Struggle for the Land, and Fantasies of the Master Race.

Churchill Really Delivers
By cecil on May 3, 2004

This guy is absolutely one of the best writers about the US Empire--he is a hammer, pounding away at crypto-fascistic policy and propaganda.
Nearly everything that he's done is great--but this is by far his best work, synthesizing as it does a broad range of history, political science, critiques of race & class, leftwing philosophy, and (of course) US & international legal scholarhsip.
Overall, the text reads as a collection of fairly tightly connected essays (you'll notice that he tends to build on points from earlier essays from the collection in the later texts)--and it builds to a crescendo in the stunning final essay (the wrong word for it, as it's about 100 pages, with nearly 600 footnotes).
Inside are discussions of Russell Means & AIM, the development of US law vis-a-vis native (and thus all foreign) "sovereignty," genocide & its attendent denial, what he memorably calls "radioactive colonization," and a host of other items. Perhaps one of the best arguments is about the alleged "right to conquest," which he traces through its varied history in the international legal arena. In this case, it's clear that despite many prohibitions to the contrary, Might tends to construct Right, and those with wealth, power, and arms often enough simply do as they will, all the while citing "International Law & Human Rights" to support and protect their patently genocidal and fascistic endeavors.
Highest Recommendation.