After 9/11, American officials authorized torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, military commissions, targeted killing, and mass surveillance. This book analyses the role of human rights and humanitarian legal norms in shaping these practices. By strategically manipulating legal rules, policymakers and their lawyers successfully normalized abuses and secured impunity for human rights violations.

Rebecca Sanders is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati, where she teaches and researches at the intersection of international law, international security, and international human rights.

• Chapter 1: The Politics of Plausible Legality


• Chapter 2: Permissive Constraint: Law, Power, and Legal Culture


• Chapter 3: Torture


• Chapter 4: Deprivations of Life and Liberty: Detention, Trial, and Targeted Killing Policy


• Chapter 5: Surveillance


• Chapter 6: The Fate of Human Rights in the Global War on Terror