The Role of Law, Ethics and Justice in Security Practices

The Oslo SAFE Forward Look workshop The Role of Law, Ethics and Justice in Security Practices was the third in the series of four preparatory workshops in the research foresight exercise Security: A Framework for Inquiry, funded by the European Science Foundation and the NATO Programme on Science for Peace and Security. The results of the conference are published as a PRIO Paper.The clear result of the workshop is that there are significant tensions and discontinuities between these differing approaches to the study of norms. Both approaches will require attention in the development of any security research agenda and neither approach should monopolise the premises for an ethics of security practice. Moreover, while the tensions should not be underestimated, there are also areas of continuity and overlap between the two approaches, suggesting opportunities for mutual engagement. One obvious area of continuity is the way in which normative approaches can be informed by the understanding of norms provided by descriptive research.