Human rights, state wrongs, and social change: the theory and practice of emancipation

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Articles

* This work was supported by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (RES-000-22-4417: The Globalisation of Rendition and Secret Detention). I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers, as well as the following people for providing helpful and insightful comments on earlier drafts of the article: Stephen Blakeley, Eric Herring, Jonathan Joseph, Laleh Khalili, Nicola Pratt, Jason Ralph, Sam Raphael, Stephen Rosow, and Anna Stavrianakis.

Introduction

George W. Bush's recent admission that he had personally authorised waterboarding in the 'War on Terror'¹provoked considerable reaction. This included indignation among UK policymakers, such as former Labour chairman of the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, Kim Howells, among others, who expressed doubt that waterboarding had provided any intelligence that had thwarted terrorist attacks, and who portrayed Bush's position as anathema to the liberal norms that they claim Britain,²and indeed liberal democracies in general, normally uphold. More broadly, the human rights abuses of the Bush administration have tended to be seen either as something of a blot on the history of the foreign policies of liberal democracies, or alternatively, and as Bush himself views them, as unfortunate but necessary in the face of enormous threats to national security. Yet when viewed within the context of the various phases of imperialism, torture, forced disappearances, and secret detention without charge or trial, as implemented by the Bush administration, cannot so easily be dismissed as exceptional. Rather, they constitute a continuation of the widespread use of state violence and terrorism³by the now powerful liberal democratic states, from European colonialism to the present day. When states perpetrate violations of human rights, they are rarely simply attempting to harm an individual or group, in isolation. Rather, there is frequently a deliberate intention on the part of the perpetrators to instil terror in a wider audience as a means of thwarting political dissent. It is therefore functional to specific logics underpinning the foreign policy aims of the state. Terroristic state violence has been one of the motors of imperialism. Yet its use has nevertheless led to historical development and social change. This is because it produces important contradictions that reverberate in unanticipated ways, often by generating resistance. Frequently, such change...