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| 1 |
ID:
157723
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| Summary/Abstract |
Law following and law breaking are often conceptualised as polar opposites. However, authorities in liberal democracies increasingly deploy a strategy of what I call plausible legality in order to secure immunity and legitimacy for proscribed practices. Rather than ignore or suspend law, they construct legal justifications for human rights abuses and other dubious policies, obscuring the distinction between legal compliance and non-compliance. I argue this is possible because instabilities in legal rules make them vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation. By tracing American rationales for contentious ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, indefinite detention, and ‘targeted killing’ practices in the ‘Global War on Terror’, I show that law need not always be abandoned or radically reconstituted to achieve troubling ends and that rule structures enable certain patterns of violation while limiting others. The international prohibition on torture is robust and universal, but provides vague definitions open to interpretation. Detention and lethal targeting regulations are jurisdictionally layered and contextually complex, creating loopholes and gaps. The article concludes by reflecting on implications for the protection of human rights. While law is not wholly indeterminate, human rights advocates must constantly advocate shared legal understandings that constrain state violence.
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| 2 |
ID:
158718
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| Summary/Abstract |
Women's social, economic and political equality and reproductive freedom have been rhetorically embraced by a majority of countries that have ratified international human rights treaties. At the same time, conservative states and non-state actors have waged a concerted campaign to undermine these principles at the United Nations. In this article, I trace the dynamics of what I call the strategy of norm spoiling. Norm spoiling is the process through which actors directly challenge existing norms with the aim of weakening their influence. Although utilizing traditional tools of norm entrepreneurship and human rights advocacy, it has distinctive characteristics. The reactionary nature of norm spoiling means norm challengers do not need to consolidate and institutionalize support for alternative norms in order to advance their agenda. Instead, they can frustrate and destabilize target norms through protracted efforts to block their development and diffusion. Moreover, because spoilers are united by shared antipathies rather than by a substantive vision of politics, spoiling coalitions are composed of unnatural and even counter-intuitive allies. Throughout the article, I document tactics used by women's rights spoilers as well as their impact on international treaties, declarations and related policies. Women's rights advocates would be wise to recognize these trends in order to defend progressive gains.
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