This page intentionally left blank AFTER ABU GHRAIB Exploring Human Rights in America and the Middle East This book traverses three pivotal human rights struggles of the post–September 11th era: the American human rights campaign to challenge the Bush administration’s “War on Terror” torture and detention policies, Middle Eastern efforts to challenge American human rights practices (reversing the traditional West to East flow of human rights mobilizations and discourses), and Middle Eastern attempts to challenge their own leaders’ human rights violations in light of American interventions This book presents snapshots of human rights being appropriated, promoted, claimed, reclaimed, and contested within and between the American and Middle Eastern contexts The inquiry has three facets: First, it explores intersections between human rights norms and power as they unfold in the era Second, it lays out the layers of the era’s American and Middle Eastern encounter on the human rights plane Finally, it draws out the era’s key lessons for moving the human rights project forward Shadi Mokhtari is an independent scholar and human rights attorney She currently works with a domestic violence nonprofit organization in the Washington D.C area and serves as the managing editor of the Muslim World Journal of Human Rights She holds PhD and LLM degrees from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University; a JD from the University of Texas School of Law; a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University; and a BA from American University She has taught as an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and has contributed chapters to books, including Islamic Law and International Law (“The Iranian Search for Human Rights within an Islamic Framework”) (2007), Islamic Feminism and the Law (“Towards a New Agenda for Islamic Feminism: Clearing the Human Rights Minefield”) (2008), and Migrant Women’s Search for Social Justice (“Migrant Women’s Interests and the Case of Shari’a Tribunals in Ontario”) (2009) In 2006, she was selected as a “new voices” panelist at the American Association of International Law Conference and was awarded honorable mention for the John Peter Humphreys Fellowship from the Canadian Council on International Law CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LAW AND SOCIETY Cambridge Studies in Law and Society aims to publish the best scholarly work on legal discourse and practice in its social and institutional contexts, combining theoretical insights and empirical research The fields that it covers are: studies of law in action; the sociology of law; the anthropology of law; cultural studies of law, including the role of legal discourses in social formations; law and economics; law and politics; and studies of governance The books consider all forms of legal discourse across societies, rather than being limited to lawyers’ discourses alone The series editors come from a range of disciplines: academic law; socio-legal studies; sociology; and anthropology All have been actively involved in teaching and writing about law in context Series editors Chris Arup Monash University, Victoria Martin Chanock La Trobe University, Melbourne Pat O’Malley University of Sydney Sally Engle Merry New York University Susan Silbey Massachusetts Institute of Technology Books in the Series Diseases of the Will Mariana Valverde The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State Richard A Wilson Modernism and the Grounds of Law Peter Fitzpatrick Unemployment and Government Genealogies of the Social William Walters Autonomy and Ethnicity Negotiating Competing Claims in Multi-Ethnic States Yash Ghai Constituting Democracy Law, Globalism and South Africa’s Political Reconstruction Heinz Klug The Ritual of Rights in Japan Law, Society, and Health Policy Eric A Feldman Continued on page following the index After Abu Ghraib EXPLORING HUMAN RIGHTS IN AMERICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST Shadi Mokhtari CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521767538 © Shadi Mokhtari 2009 This publication is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press First published in print format 2009 ISBN-13 978-0-511-58073-4 eBook (NetLibrary) ISBN-13 978-0-521-76753-8 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate To my father, Rahim Mokhtari, and my mother, Guiti Assadi, for their burning passion for the realization of justice and human dignity in their native Iran, in their adopted United States, and throughout the world Contents Acknowledgments page viii Abbreviations Introduction ONE TWO FIVE American Imaginings of Human Rights and the Middle East 21 The Human Rights Challenge from Within 63 THREE The Middle Eastern Gaze on American Human Rights Commitments FOUR ix 113 American Imprints and the Middle East’s New Human Rights Landscape 150 From the Ashes of the Post–September 11th Era: Lessons for the Human Rights Project 200 Conclusion 237 Bibliography 245 Index 249 vii Acknowledgments I am greatly indebted to family, friends, colleagues, and mentors for their support and assistance in the completion of this book First and foremost, I would like to thank Susan Drummond for her enduring encouragement and invaluable input throughout the process At every point at which I felt the project was simply too ambitious and impossible to complete, it was Susan who convinced me to get back in front of my computer and start the next chapter I also thank Obiora Okafor and Annie Bunting for their guidance and feedback throughout my tenure at Osgoode Hall Law School I must also express my gratitude to all the people who assisted me throughout my fieldwork This project would not have been possible without the tremendous insights provided by the American and Middle Eastern human rights activists, journalists, and government officials who graciously offered me their time, experiences, and perspectives I would also like to thank Anbara Abu Ayyash, David Cole, Gregory Dean Johnson, Galil Noaman, Wendy Patten, and Charles Schmitz, who each provided valuable leads and assistance with some aspect of the field research My work in Yemen also benefited immensely from the interpretation assistance of Baraa Shiban Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Peyman Khalichi, for his immense enthusiasm for my work and for his willingness to always engage with the issues and ideas encompassed in this project I am also grateful for the support of my brother Rohmteen Mokhtari, who never ceases to amaze me with wisdom beyond his years His spirit serves as inspiration for the optimism and hope weaved into this work viii 240 AFTER ABU GHRAIB Embedded within the debates erupting on both sides was a sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit, argument that there must be a change in course because otherwise “We will have become like them.” However, even as a distancing from the other’s actions served as a catalyzing force for an increased turn to human rights (the regime being disregarded by the other), strides were simultaneously made in the opposite direction – toward displacing the hierarchies of cultures and peoples long entwined with the human rights project Witnessing the overt commission of human rights violations by the United States often left activists and observers disoriented, feeling like they had stepped into a strange new reality they barely recognized and nostalgic for the days in which they could confidently know that the U.S government would not commit torture and, if it did, the American legal system would put an immediate stop to it Yet they were eventually forced to adopt new parameters to make sense of the era’s unfolding human rights contests This often meant slowly moving away from engrained assumptions that Western action would generally correlate with the progress and achievement of rights and that American human rights transgressions (including violence through war) would generally encompass an element of calculated rationality or justified means to liberal ends Thus, as the post–September 11th era progressed, it became increasingly apparent that human rights could not be neatly tied to a particular geography, place, or locale with the same degree of certainty it had been in the past It was now much more conceivable that torture, denials of due process, and, by extension, other human rights violations could take place anywhere The once seemingly reliable demarcations of the East/West geography of human rights now looked skewed and unreliable At the same time, the Middle Eastern eye on American human rights transgressions in the post–September 11th era offered an alternative configuration and mapping of the flow of global human rights dynamics The creation of this altered terrain was less attributable to any conscious decision to reassess traditional human rights equations on the part of advocates and observers alike than to what may be more accurately understood as the consonant dissonance produced by the Guantanamos, CIA black sites, and torture memos of the era EMERGING OUT OF THE ERA Some potentially promising consequences flow from the transformed human rights landscape taking shape as the post–September 11th era winds down First, although a time of tremendous international conflict, the post– September 11th era has provided important opportunities for bridging global divides between civil society forces In many respects, American and CONCLUSION 241 Middle Eastern journalists, lawyers, and NGOs took important strides toward greater dialog, exchange, and collaboration on more equal terms during the era This comes through in a comment on the cooperation between Yemeni and American lawyers on Guantanamo cases by HOOD’s Khaled Alanesi: And our American friends, they always contact us and in every accomplishment, they say without you, we couldn’t have done it We also say that without them we couldn’t anything Guantanamo detainees’ cases showed that we unite on the basis of freedoms and rights In the case of the Guantanamo detainees, it shows that we all agree on freedom and human rights because the people working on the case are Muslims, Jews, Christians, rightist and leftist, believers and non-believers They belong to different groups So this shows the idea of freedom and human rights.1 Second, the new human rights outlook may enable a greater inclination on the part of both American and Middle Eastern populations to look inward and rediscover the many overlooked denials of human dignity taking place at their footsteps Most important, however, has been the increased possibility that co-opting human rights as license for military interventions not genuinely rooted in humanitarian considerations will prove a more arduous task than it was at the onset of the post–September 11th era This potential advance could be seen in the relative absence of emphasis on Iranian human rights practices in discussions of military action against Iran in the United States in 2008 As Trita Parsi of the National Iranian-American Council, who has been involved lobbying efforts against U.S military action in Iran, observed: There seems to be a deliberate attempt for U.S advocates of military action in Iran to not use human rights justifications It is not an argument the American public finds attractive There are two reasons for this: the failed experience in Iraq and the lack of U.S credibility on human rights after Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.2 Two final episodes provide insight into the state of the human rights project as the post–September 11th era draws to a close On September 24, 2007, the scandal-prone Iranian president, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, was invited to speak at Columbia University in New York City The occasion attracted an unusual mix of protestors They included American Jewish groups objecting to what they considered a major American university’s inappropriate welcoming of a holocaust denier, free-speech supporters challenging the assertion that Ahmadinejad should not be allowed to address the university, women’s rights and gay rights supporters highlighting the Interview with Khaled Alanesi, executive director, HOOD, in Sana’a, Yemen (Jan 15, 2007) Telephone interview with Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian-American Council (Aug 1, 2008) 242 AFTER ABU GHRAIB repression suffered by women and homosexuals in Iran, and antiwar protestors implicitly challenging the use of Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric and Iranian human rights conditions as devices for advancing a war agenda with Iran Among the many handmade signs displayed by the disparate voices assembled on the Columbia University campus was one that simply read “Protecting Human Rights Begins at Home.” Six years after September 11th, the sign displayed was as perplexing and multifaceted as the era to which it belonged On one reading, the slogan could be interpreted as a message to Americans fixated on Iranian human rights violations while turning a blind eye to their own human rights deficiencies – freedom of speech at this forum, gay rights in the United States, or Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Alternatively, the same sign could have been directed at Ahmadinejad, who is apt to cite American human rights violations to obscure deplorable rights conditions in Iran The anecdote’s significance lies not in which of the two interpretations served as the sign’s original inspiration; rather, its significance lies in the fact that either (or both) interpretation is now widely imaginable In this way, the sign comes to epitomize the evolution of human rights equations at the end of the post–September 11th era Another event that took place three months earlier was equally notable On June 25, 2007, a group of graduating high school students selected as Presidential Scholars was invited to the White House for a photo-op and gathering with the U.S president in honor of the prestigious award They took the occasion to pass George W Bush a letter that was signed by 50 of the 140 young awardees The letter the president was forced to read silently, as the students watched, stated the following: Mr President As members of the Presidential Scholars class of 2007, we have been told that we represent the best and brightest of our nation Therefore, we believe we have a responsibility to voice our convictions We not want America to represent torture We urge you to all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants Signed, The American students’ initiative mirrors the efforts of Yemeni youth who posed direct challenges to American embassy officials regarding the United States’ human rights policies recounted in chapter and similar efforts by the same group to promote human rights in their own way within Yemen Thus, despite the utter failure of so many of the era’s leaders (including those of the “free world”) to apply international human rights norms in good faith, these are promising signs that in the United States as in the Middle East and beyond, a generation of future leaders has emerged from this tragic era with CONCLUSION 243 a commitment to carry the human rights project forward In other words, as the era begins to burn out, emerging from the ashes of its many 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http://www.bepress.com/mwjhr/vol1/iss1/art6 Quintan Wiktorowicz, Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, Indiana University Press (2004) Richard A Wilson, ed., Human Rights in the “War on Terror,” Cambridge University Press (2005) Andreas Wittel, “Ethnography on the Move: From Field to Net to Internet.” 1:1 Qualitative Soc Res (2000) Mai Yamani, ed., Feminism and Islam, New York University Press (1996) Haifa Zangana, “The Three Cyclops of Empire-Building: Targeting the Fabric of Iraqi Society,” Amy Bartholomew, ed Empire’s Law: the American Imperial Project and the “War to Remake the World,” Pluto Press and Between the Lines, pp 254–255 (2006) Index Abdul Futouh, Abdul Momen, 192, 195 Abdullah II bin al-Hussein, 178 Abu Ghraib, 63–66, 74, 151, 156–158 Abuzayd, Francis, 135 Agbakwa, Shedrack, 10 Ahmadinejad, Mahmood, 241 Al-Ahram, 151, 157 Al-Akhbar, 131 al-Asadi, Mohammad Ahmed, 115, 184–185 Al-Deraji, Mohammad, 158 al Gedsi, Sa’ad, 131, 186, 187 al-Ghad, 162, 172, 195 al Hajj, Sami, 92 al-Hamdi, Khaled, 133 Al Jafr prison, 177, 178 al-Jazeera, 92, 173 al-Odah, Khalid, 124, 125, 126, 129, 160, 180 al-Ra’y, 172 al-Sane’, Ibrahim, 135, 168, 172 al-Shami, Jamal Abdullah, 26, 123, 130, 133 al-Sharq al-Awsat, 157, 161 al-Tayeb, Mohammad, 166, 174, 191, 193, 218–219, 220, 221 Alanesi, Khaled, 5, 12–13, 133, 138, 155, 160, 182, 241 Allaw, Mohammad Najji, 5, 133, 136, 155, 170, 182, 183–184 Al-Motawakel, Mohammed Abdul Malik, 181 Al-Soswa, Amat Al-Alim, 116, 121 American Bar Association (ABA), 135, 160 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 70, 71, 90, 96–98, 215 American exceptionalism, 92, 103 Amman Center for Human Rights Studies, 2–3, 181 Ammannet, 138–140, 172 Amnesty International, 68, 77, 115 An-Naim, Abdullahi, 201, 202 Arab Lawyers Union, 152 Arab News, 132, 164 Arab Organization for Human Rights, 117 Arato, Andrew, 232 Arrabyee, Nasser, 178–179 Arrar, Maher, 56, 120, 206, 213 Assaf, Nizam, 3, 159, 166, 168, 170, 171, 173, 180 Bagram, 92 Bahrain, 6, 121 Bahrain Center for Human Rights, 117 Bak, Shaher, 132, 163, 175, 177 Barnett, Michael, 17 Bartholomew, Amy, 36, 41, 153, 213, 233, 235 Basha, Amal, 5, 123, 129–130, 136, 153, 156, 181, 185, 187, 219–220, 229 Batarfi, Khaled, 132, 144 Beaver, Diane, 47 Blitzer, Wolfe, 90 Burlingame, Debra, 126–127 Boumediene v Bush, 124 Bringing Human Rights Home Initiative, 98 Brunnee, Jutta, 158 Buck-Morss, Susan, 22 Bush, George W., 27, 29, 30, 35, 46, 49, 55, 57, 59, 87, 126, 165, 211, 242 Bybee, Jay, 40 Bybee torture memo, 39, 86 249 250 Cairo Institute for Human Rights, 123 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 192 Chase, Anthony, 188, 189, 234 Cheney, Dick, 34, 76, 87 Choudhury, Cyra, 55, 59, 214, 228 Clark, Janine A., 190, 197 Combatant Status Review Tribunals, 106 constructivism, 13–17, 74, 89, 104–105, 165, 171, 175, 181, 211, 232 Convention Against Torture (CAT), 24, 32, 36, 37, 39, 47, 67, 230 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 23, 134 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), 97, 131, 160 Cortell, Andrew, 77, 88 Cover, Avi, 70, 75, 81, 109 Cowan, Jane, 201 Critical Theory See Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Dakwar, Jamil, 90, 96, 98, 100 Daud, Ismail, 151, 153, 154 Davis, James, 77, 88 Dembour, Marie-Benedicte, 201 Democracy School, 115, 123, 130, 131 detainees, 55 portrayals of, 50–53 Diehl, Jackson, 80 Doha Gulf Times, 151 Durbin, Dick, 102 Duvall, Raymond, 17 economic and social rights, 140 Egypt, 5, 157 el-Masri, Khalid, 56 El Obaid, El Obaid, 26, 145, 162, 186, 217, 220 extraordinary rendition, 39, 56 Forsythe, David, 24, 202 framing, 77–83, 105–108, 210–217 Freedom House, 135, 136, 139 Friedman, Thomas, 143 Geneva Conventions, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 52, 67, 88, 109, 230 Global Rights, 95 Goldsmith, Jack, 38 250 INDEX Gonzales, Alberto, 34, 35, 36, 44, 47, 66, 70, 72, 75, 80, 87, 90, 145, 169 Graham, Lindsay, 74, 80, 87, 89 Guantanamo Bay, 40, 92, 115, 117, 124, 151–152 Hamdan v Rumsfeld, 119 Hassan, Ali Seyf, 181 Higgins, Roslyn, 203–204 Hoffman, Stanley, 29 honor killings, 139 HOOD See National Organization for Defense of Rights and Freedom human rights, appropriations, 8, 227, 234 culture, and, 22–23, 204, 207 East/West geography, 10–13, 29, 92, 106–107, 113–115, 122–124, 201–210, 240 post-9/11 lessons, 18–19, 200–236 U.S.-Middle East Interactions, 17–18 Human Rights First, 33, 68, 70, 71, 75, 83, 84, 110, 209, 213 Human Rights Training and Information Center, 115 Human Rights Watch, 42, 68, 71, 72, 83, 84, 95, 103, 106, 111, 191, 222–230 Hunter, Duncan, 35 Hutson, John, 56, 92, 109 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 97 International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 24, 47 International Criminal Court, 94, 123, 135 international law, 230–235 reservations, 46 use of force, 37 International Visitors Program, 133 Iraq War, 152, 230 Islah Party, 183, 185, 193, 194, 196–197 Islamic Action Front (IAF), 169, 190, 191–192, 194, 195, 197–198 Islamists, 183–198 Johnstone, Ian, 22 Jordan, 2, 33, 121 media, 172–173, 174 Jordan Times, 122 Jordanian Society for Human Rights, 135 Kahtan, Mohammad, 192, 193, 196–197 Karasawa, Fuyuki, 235 Kennicott, Phillip, 43, 141 251 INDEX Keohane, Robert, 43 Krisch, Nico, 24, 25, 37, 48, 232 Kuwait, 6, 124–129, 157, 180, 203 Kuwait Families Committee, 124, 125 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), 70 Leahy, Patrick, 94, 102 Levick, Richard, 125 Linde, Hans A., 24 Malinowsky, Tom, 54, 75, 92, 106, 110 Massimino, Elissa, 213 McCain, John, 68, 73, 74, 79, 81, 82, 88 McCain amendment, 68, 76, 87 Merry, Sally, 189, 207 Mertus, Julie, 29, 104 Middle East human rights institutions, 175–180 media, 116–118 See also Jordan, Yemen, media nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 156, 159–160, 180–183 rulers, 154–156, 166–171 Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), 131, 138, 180 Military Commissions, 33, 35, 56, 88 Modirzadeh, Naz, 229 Morocco, 6, 33 Mutua, Makau, 10 National Center for Human Rights (NCHR), 133, 163, 172, 175–178 National Organization for Defense of Rights and Freedom (HOOD), 5, 115, 119, 136, 137, 183 National Public Radio (NPR), 106 National Review, 207 New York Times, 71, 79, 92, 208 Newell Bierman, Katherine, 72, 83 Newsweek, 72, 81 Okafor, Obiora, 10 Olson, Theodore, 49, 50, 58 Open Society Institute, 95 Orientalism, 11, 105, 170 Parsi, Trita, 241 Patten, Wendy, 95, 98, 103 Perry, Robin, 160 Political Development Forum (PDF), 181 Powell, Catherine, 11, 216 power definition of, human rights, and, 7–17, 146–147 Priest, Dana, 80 Rajab, Nabeel, 119 Rasul v Bush, 124 Rice, Condoleezza, 203–204 Rishwani, Manar, 162–163 Risse, Thomas, 16, 88, 146 Rohrabacher, Dana, 211–213 Ropp, Steven C., 16 Ross, Loretta, 22 Roth, Kenneth, 224–226 Rumsfeld, Donald, 32, 44, 97, 210 Rumsfeld v Hamdan, 88 Said, Edward, 11 Saleh, Abdullah, 166 Saudi Arabia, 5, 202 Shahid, Anthony, 154 shaming, 75–77, 116 Sifton, John, 42 Sikkink, Kathryn, 16, 88 Slaughter, Anne Marie, 43 Sofaer, Abraham, 48 Stork, Joe, 222–224 Sununu, John, 91 Syria, 33 Tars, Eric, 100, 102, 107 Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), 10–13 Toope, Stephen J., 158 torture, 37, 41 UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, 101 United States, 152–153 American exceptionalism, 26, 44, 61, 216 Constitution/Constitutional law See domestic law domestic law, 41 human rights culture, 96, 210 human rights identities and discourses, 21–23, 25–26, 42–44, 59–62 human rights practice, 206 human rights promotion and funding abroad, 134–141, 165–166 See also Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) 251 252 United States (cont.) human rights violations, 31–33, 53–55, 60–61 international law, and, 23–25, 30, 34–39, 44–45, 101–103 media, 73, 103 military interventions/militarism, 27–28, 108–112, 217–230 military officials, 83–84, 96, 108–112 military/national security, 82–84 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 69–71, 101, 210–217, 221–230 power, 23, 230 reservations to international treaties, 24, 38, 46–48 State Department Country Reports, 25, 131, 143 torture, 43–44, 93 U.S Agency for International Development (USAID), 134 252 INDEX U.S Human Rights Network, 99–100 use of force doctrine, 226 Washington Post, 71, 72, 75, 76, 103 Watts, Sean, 134 Weissman, Deborah, 23, 25 Wickham, Carrie, 195 Wilner, Tom, 126 Wilson, Richard, 201 Women’s Forum for Research and Training, 131, 210 Yemen, 2, 3–4, 121 media, 116–117 Ministry of Human Rights, 167, 178–180 Yoo, John, 36, 47, 95 Zaideh, Sawsan, 138–139 Zangana, Haifa, 153 Books in the Series (continued from page ii) The Invention of the Passport Surveillance, Citizenship and the State John Torpey Governing Morals A Social History of Moral Regulation Alan Hunt The Colonies of Law Colonialism, Zionism and Law in Early Mandate Palestine Ronen Shamir Law and Nature David Delaney Social Citizenship and Workfare in the United States and Western Europe The Paradox of Inclusion Joel F Handler Law, Anthropology and the Constitution of the Social Making Persons and Things Edited by Alain Pottage and Martha Mundy Judicial Review and Bureaucratic Impact International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives Edited by Marc Hertogh and Simon Halliday Immigrants at the Margins Law, Race, and Exclusion in Southern Europe Kitty Calavita Lawyers and Regulation The Politics of the Administrative Process Patrick Schmidt Law and Globalization from Below Toward a Cosmopolitan Legality Edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Cesar A Rodriguez-Garavito Public Accountability Designs, Dilemmas and Experiences Edited by Michael W Dowdle Law, Violence and Sovereignty among West Bank Palestinians Tobias Kelly Legal Reform and Administrative Detention Powers in China Sarah Biddulph The Practice of Human Rights Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local Edited by Mark Goodale and Sally Engle Merry Judges Beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship Lessons from Chile Lisa Hilbink Paths to International Justice Social and Legal Perspectives Edited by Marie-B´en´edicte Dembour and Tobias Kelly Law and Society in Vietnam The Transition from Socialism in Comparative Perspective Mark Sidel Constitutionalizing Economic Globalization Investment Rules and Democracy’s Promise David Schneiderman The New World Trade Organization Agreements: 2nd Edition Globalizing Law Through Intellectual Property and Services (2nd Edition) Christopher Arup Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa Edited by Franỗois du Bois, Antje du Bois-Pedain Militarization and Violence against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East A Palestinian Case-Study Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian Child Pornography and Sexual Grooming Legal and Societal Responses Suzanne Ost Darfur and the Crime of Genocide John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond Planted Flags: Trees, Land, and Law in Israel/Palestine Irus Braverman Fictions of Justice: the International Criminal Court and the Challenge of Legal Pluralism in Sub-Saharan Africa Kamari Maxine Clarke Conducting Law and Society Research: Reflections on Methods and Practices Simon Halliday and Patrick Schmidt After Abu Ghraib: Exploring Human Rights in America and the Middle East Shadi Mokhtari ... Heinz Klug The Ritual of Rights in Japan Law, Society, and Health Policy Eric A Feldman Continued on page following the index After Abu Ghraib EXPLORING HUMAN RIGHTS IN AMERICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST. .. Abbreviations Introduction ONE TWO FIVE American Imaginings of Human Rights and the Middle East 21 The Human Rights Challenge from Within 63 THREE The Middle Eastern Gaze on American Human Rights Commitments... Introduction: American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, in American Exceptionalsism and Human Rights (Michael Ignatieff ed., 2005) 13 Interview AMERICAN IMAGININGS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE MIDDLE EAST 27 and