Attack by Design: Australia’s Offshore Detention System and the Literature of Atrocity

Abstract

A great work of literature does more for international criminal justice than providing evidence. By couching the evidence in conceptual categories, literature can offer insights on how law should be interpreted. This review essay seeks to demonstrate this argument about legal interpretation through a reading of Behrouz Boochani’s much-acclaimed No Friend but the Mountains. In doing so, it seeks to offer a reflection on the significance of literary evidence authored by those subjected to atrocity. Boochani is far from being the first author whose work has enormous value both as literature and as testimony (an overlap that has been widely studied in the humanities and social sciences). Yet the relationship between the two is still seldom appreciated by lawyers and seldom appreciated for its value to legal theory. The essay aims to contribute to the latter discussion, specifically as it pertains to contemporary abuses against asylum seekers.