Impunity in times of genocide

Impunity has arguably become a defining feature of the current conjuncture. How does one contend with a liberal human rights order that is designed to produce impunity for all that lies outside of its orbit, namely the political economy of the war machine and settler colonial extractivism? In this talk, Prof. Bhandar outlines three tentative rationales for why impunity is a central feature of the current conjuncture: i). impunity is produced by the founding violence of the colonial nation state, and remains central to its settlement project; ii) the colonial nation-state and its settler citizens are the paradigmatic subjects of a primordial and absolute right to self-defence, and iii) the excess pleasure found in the masculinist performance of impunity that is overwhelmingly present in contemporary politics.