| In this paper, I will investigate how various conceptions of law and legal methodology characterize proposed solutions to dilemmas of compliance and enforcement in the area of human rights. Through this examination, I hope to help revise common understandings of international law and domestic law, with a specific emphasis upon deconstructing classic binary dichotomies which are drawn between international law as being comparatively ineffective, unclear and universalizing and domestic law as being comparatively instrumental, clear and roguishly particularistic. In particular, I will attempt to build upon several "constructivist" theories of international relations and international law which describe law as a strictly ordered process of reasoning embedded within a complex of interlocking, mutually re-constituting social identities, interests and conventions. This theoretical perspective will support a normative push away from viewing law merely as an instrument capable of reliably effecting envisioned ends and towards viewing law as a more complex, fluid phenomenon which springs from and gains strength from human aspiration. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
