The Prevention of Torture
An Ecological Approach

Moving past theoretical critiques of human rights, this book considers how we might translate situational analyses of torture into effective strategies for preventing it.

Danielle Celermajer (Author)

9781108470452, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 September 2018

372 pages, 1 b/w illus.
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.63 kg

'… Celermajer's work undoubtedly merits wide inclusion on the reading lists of postgraduate programmes in applied human rights. Celermajer ensures that the demands and difficulties of the world of human rights practice are always kept in view throughout the book.' Brian Phillips, Journal of Human Rights Practice

There is an urgent need to analyze and assess how we prevent torture, against the background of a rigorous analysis of the factors that condition and sustain it. Drawing on rich empirical material from Sri Lanka and Nepal, The Prevention of Torture: An Ecological Approach interrogates the worlds that produce torture in order to propose how to bring about systemic institutional and cultural change. Critics have decried human rights approaches' failure to attend to structural factors, but this book seeks to go beyond a 'stance of criticism' to take up the positive project of reimagining human rights theory and practice. It discusses key debates in human rights and political theory, as well as the challenges that advocates face in translating situational analyses into real world interventions. Danielle Celermajer develops a new, ecological framework for mapping the worlds that produce torture, and thereby develops prevention strategies.

Introduction
1. The principal approaches preventing torture
2. How effective has torture prevention been? 3. The situational conditions of institutional violence
4. The production of worlds of torture
5. Agents, structures and the social imaginary of human rights
6. Taking situational theory to the field
7. The promises and hazards of practice
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: International organisations & institutions [LBBU], International human rights law [LBBR], Human rights [JPVH], International relations [JPS]