2024-03-132024-03-132022-08-15Ramji-Nogales J. Race in Security. AJIL Unbound. 2022;116:242-247. doi:10.1017/aju.2022.382398-7723http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/9865In “Making Sense of Security,” J. Benton Heath pushes the reader to tangle with two unresolved foundational questions about the use of security in international law: who decides questions of security, and on what grounds. This essay examines the role of race in both of those questions, identifying structures and mechanisms of racial subordination that must be surfaced to fully make sense of security. In particular, it foregrounds the tension between reformist reforms and abolitionist reforms to which Heath makes reference. By rendering visible the historical and contemporary work performed by white supremacy in security, this essay seeks to elucidate and problematize that dilemma. Rather than retaining the exclusionary security frame, a turn to solidarity offers the possibility of a more inclusive approach to international law that creates connection based on our shared humanity. Heath helpfully conceptualizes security as a “continuing struggle over epistemic authority” and he elucidates central challenges that arise from this insight. Given the power that security wields to entrench or disrupt, he foregrounds the importance of the epistemic question: “it matters whose knowledge we are privileging, and how.”4 Heath highlights the lack of accessibility, democracy, and responsiveness of security institutions, and underscores the struggle waged by those whose knowledge is undervalued, primarily non-state actors.5 He describes a pluralist approach to security that might enable a shift away from “emergency power and institutionalized expertise,” thereby leaving “the state radically decentered.”6 These are all key contributions to the literature, persuasively presented. This essay considers Heath’s fundamental questions—who decides, and on what basis—through the lens of race.6 pagesengAttribution CC BYhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Text