A Genealogy of the Torture Taboo

Barnes, Jamal

doi:10.4324/9781315269009

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…However, as we have shown in the torture case, shaming can still be effective. Specifically, it was possible to build a powerful campaign, even though it was foreigners’ rights that were violated, because the violations involved physical harm that could be easily visualized and because of torture’s status as a taboo—qualities that are believed to make rights violations particularly suitable for a public campaign (Barnes, 2017; Keck and Sikkink, 1998: 205).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing reason or seeing costs? The United States, counterterrorism, and the human rights of foreigners

Heupel

Heaphy

2021

European Journal of International Relations

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It is well known that in the wake of 9/11, the United States committed various extraterritorial human rights violations, that is, human rights violations against foreigners outside of its territory. What is less known is that the United States has gradually introduced safeguards that are, at least on paper, meant to prevent its counter-terrorism policies from causing harm to foreigners abroad or, at least, to mitigate such harm. Based on three case studies on the development of safeguards related to torture, targeted killing, and mass surveillance, we show that two mechanisms, coercion and strategic learning, deployed either on their own or in combination, can account for the development of such safeguards. By contrast, we found no evidence of a third mechanism, moral persuasion, having any direct effect. In other words, US policymakers opt to introduce such safeguards either when they face pressure from other states, courts, or civil society that makes immediate action necessary or when they anticipate that not introducing them will, at a later date, result in prohibitively high costs. We did not find evidence of US policymakers establishing safeguards because they deemed them morally appropriate. From this we conclude that, although the emerging norm that states have extraterritorial (and not just domestic) human rights obligations may not have been internalized by key US policymakers, it nevertheless has a regulative effect on them insofar as the fact that relevant others believe in the norm restricts their leeway and influences their cost–benefit calculations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing reason or seeing costs? The United States, counterterrorism, and the human rights of foreigners

Heupel

Heaphy

2021

European Journal of International Relations

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“…148 Second, the fact that human rights and refugee laws have been violated does not mean they do not matter. 149 Although compliance with norms provides a useful signal of their impact, there are other ways to determine the legitimacy and power of norms and laws. 150 One of these is to examine how a state justifies its violation of a norm.…”

Section: Undermined But Not Extinguishedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…151 Denying violations and invoking emergency conditions do not constitute abandonment of laws and norms but in fact constitute recognition of them, as the states responding in these ways are continuing to engage with the international legal framework. 152 Although there is the risk that some states may try to continue to appeal to 'emergency conditions' even after COVID-19 has come under control, it will become harder to justify as the threat of the pandemic diminishes.…”

Section: Undermined But Not Extinguishedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Support for the violators would suggest the demise of the norm, while condemnation of the violators would indicate a reaffirmation of the norm. 154 Constructivist scholars have shown how violations of a norm can trigger blowback, providing an opportu-International Affairs 00: 0, 2021 nity to pressurize or persuade states to alter their behaviour, while also producing socialization effects that reaffirm the norm. 155 As shown in the examples cited above, migration deterrence policies faced significant resistance.…”

Section: Undermined But Not Extinguishedmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A threat to cosmopolitan duties? How COVID-19 has been used as a tool to undermine refugee rights

Barnes¹,

Makinda²

2021

International Affairs

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The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 provided cover for some states to take strict and hostile measures against refugees and asylum seekers, thereby privileging self-regarding over other-regarding or cosmopolitan-oriented policies. The hostile measures, which have included detentions, pushbacks and other refugee deterrence actions not only appeared to shake the refugee system, but they increased the vulnerability of asylum seekers and refugees who continued to be exposed to torture, drownings at sea, trafficking and sexual violence. This development, which included a fine-tuning of some measures that had been hatched before the emergence of COVID-19, appeared to set back efforts to nurture the bonds of global human solidarity and expand moral and ethical boundaries beyond state borders. However, the international refugee regime continues and is supported by many states and other international actors that seek to emphasise cosmopolitan and other-regarding policies. The resilience of the refugee system underlines the fact that international society has a practical and moral basis to challenge exclusionist policies towards asylum seekers and refugees, prevent future harm that might result from asylum deterrence policies and develop more humane forms of international refugee governance.

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“…These developments denied the infliction of pain any positive past connotations, undermining the legitimacy of torture (Silverman 2001). Moreover, torture was now perceived to be dangerous to the (civilised) social order (Barnes 2013: 16). Indeed, the developing notion of individual rights and security made it impossible for the state to justify torture as a means to keep its citizens safe (Hunt 2007).…”

Section: Norm Internalisation: the Case Of The Prohibition Of Torturementioning

confidence: 99%

Norm internalisation revisited: Norm contestation and the life of norms at the extreme of the norm cascade

Iommi

2019

Glob. Con.

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Abstract:Finnemore and Sikkink’s norms life cycle model (NLCM) is a powerful heuristic device that continues to be a mandatory point of reference for theoretical and empirical scholarship on norm change. Yet the internalisation stage as conceptualised in the NLCM is problematic. Drawing from Wiener’s Theory of Contestation, this article proposes to reconceptualise the norm internalisation stage as the phase at the extreme of the norm cascade in which inherently contested norms simultaneously enjoy formal validity, social recognition, and cultural validation among stakeholders. Unlike Finnemore and Sikkink’s, this conceptualisation focuses solely on norm validity and does not assume ‘almost automatic’ compliance. While Finnemore and Sikkink emphasise habit and institutionalisation as mechanisms of internalisation, the proposed conceptualisation highlights the role of applicatory contestation under conditions of high contestedness. Furthermore, I argue that internalised norms continue to be contested. Finally, my conceptualisation explicitly incorporates norm regression as the fourth stage of the NLCM. Norms might regress because they become obsolete, they change, or they are replaced. To assess the descriptive power of the proposed conceptualisation vis-à-vis Finnemore and Sikkink’s, the article applies them to the analysis of the norm that prohibits torture.

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A Genealogy of the Torture Taboo

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Seeing reason or seeing costs? The United States, counterterrorism, and the human rights of foreigners

Seeing reason or seeing costs? The United States, counterterrorism, and the human rights of foreigners

A threat to cosmopolitan duties? How COVID-19 has been used as a tool to undermine refugee rights

Norm internalisation revisited: Norm contestation and the life of norms at the extreme of the norm cascade

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