After Abu Ghraib
Exploring Human Rights in America and the Middle East

The book presents human rights struggles within and between the United States and the Middle East in the post-September 11th era.

Shadi Mokhtari (Author)

9781107401488, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 March 2011

274 pages
22.6 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.37 kg

'Shadi Mokhtari's After Abu Ghraib is original and conceptually incisive in its argument that much-publicized U.S. violations of human rights - epitomized by Abu Ghraib - have helped stimulate a healthier human rights discourse in both the Middle East and, to a lesser degree, the United States … Mokhtari uses her field research and theoretical grounding to move us beyond some cliched debates in human rights, advance a critique of U.S. insularity even among human rights defenders, and open our eyes to key trends in the Middle East. This is an impressive achievement.' H-Review Digest

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.

Introduction
1. American imaginings of human rights and the Middle East
2. The human rights challenge from within
3. The Middle Eastern gaze on American human rights commitments
4. American imprints and the Middle East's new human rights landscape
5. From the ashes of the post-September 11th era: lessons for the human rights project.

Subject Areas: Human rights [JPVH], Comparative politics [JPB]