The Logics of Supranational Human Rights Litigation, Official Acknowledgment, and Human Rights Reform: The Southeast Turkey Cases before the European Court of Human Rights, 1996–2006

Abstract

This article examines the domestic impact of supranational human rights litigation on acknowledgment of state violence in the context of macroprocesses of global governance. The article's argument is that the impact of supranational human rights litigation on the process of acknowledgment must be seen through counternarratives on state violence. The article undertakes a detailed textual analysis of the truth claims and denial strategies that emerged from the European Court of Human Rights proceedings on state violence during Turkey's struggle against the armed group the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It assesses these in the context of the human rights reforms that were created following pressure from European‐level governance processes. The article argues that attention must be paid to agency in acknowledgment and truth‐telling processes, and points to the limits of technical‐bureaucratic forms of human rights reform interventions in the context of state violence.

Human Rights Trials in an Era of Democratic Stagnation: The Case of Turkey

“…The findings presented in this article indicate that in contexts of conflicted democracy, or even democratic stagnation, where political elites are not adopting human‐rights‐respecting behavior, trials for human rights crimes can occur and affect the ongoing struggle for justice by introducing counternarratives into public venues and institutional spaces. This was not achieved in the international cases seen at the ECtHR (Çali , 332). This counternarrative should not be underestimated.…”

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Violence and human rights in Russia: how human rights defenders develop their tactics in the face of danger, 2005–2013

“…101 Consequently, the ECtHR's mounting judgments become leverage to pressure the state to comply with the convention or to initiate truth-seeking processes on the violent conflict. 102 Applications to the court can be dangerous for lawyers and their clients. 103 SRJI describes the various perils that lawyers encounter: Any travel requires crossing numerous military checkpoints where soldiers routinely solicit bribes.…”

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“…Hale, 2011). The effects of these reforms, however, have been complicated and limited on the ground because they usually have come at the expense of depoliticizing the pursuit of human rights, treating them as susceptible to technical fixes (Babül, 2017; Bahçecik, 2015; Çalı, 2010).…”