“The Empire Strikes Back”: The US Assault on the International Human Rights Regime

Abstract

We argue that the post-9/11 environment has amounted to a substantive change in the longstanding United States relationship with the international human rights regime. We identify three distinct phases of that relationship, noting that in the most recent phase, since 9/11, the United States has moved from passive support of the international human rights regime to a direct attack of that regime. Realist and liberal regime theories suggest that the human rights regime is relatively weak, and is unlikely to withstand such an attack. We find that the regime has not only continued to persist, but has flourished even as US support has faltered. The human rights regime is surprisingly strong. We argue it is the ideological nature of the regime that explains its resilience, which suggests that constructivist theory is necessary to fully understand the human rights regime.

Contesting the International Illegitimacy of Torture: The Bush Administration's Failure to Legitimate its Preferences within International Society

“…Alternatively, if such a norm cascade were unsuccessful internationally, then not only would there be less concern over the general use of torture within the rest of international society, but these norms might influence the United States to abstain from torture despite the domestic norm cascade. Julie Harrelson‐Stephens and Rhonda Callaway (, 450) took up this argument by claiming that the effect of US conduct was not negative on the whole because the institutionalisation of human rights among other Western states was able to uphold the regime absent the United States.…”