TY - JOUR
T1 - “Legal exhaustion” and the crisis of human rights
T2 - Tracing legal mobilization against sexual violence and torture of Kurdish women in state custody in Turkey since the 1990s
AU - Göksel, Nisa
AU - Morse, Jaimie
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewer and the editors of this special issue, Heather Smith-Cannoy and Tricia Redeker Hepner, for their insightful and encouraging reviews. We would like to thank the organizers and participants of the conference titled, Human Rights on the Edge: The Future of International Human Rights Law & Practice, organized in 2021 by the ASU’s Global Human Rights Hub. The conference was funded by the National Science Foundation. Special thanks to our discussants, Malay Firoz and Genevieve Bates, for their valuable feedback. We are also grateful to Caroline McKusick and Imge Oranlı for commenting on drafts of this article. We would also like to thank John Hagan for supporting this project as faculty sponsor for the MacArthur Summer Research Grant that funded our fieldwork.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the MacArthur Summer Research Grant by Northwestern University Sociology Department. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewer and the editors of this special issue, Heather Smith-Cannoy and Tricia Redeker Hepner, for their insightful and encouraging reviews. We would like to thank the organizers and participants of the conference titled, Human Rights on the Edge: The Future of International Human Rights Law & Practice, organized in 2021 by the ASU?s Global Human Rights Hub. The conference was funded by the National Science Foundation. Special thanks to our discussants, Malay Firoz and Genevieve Bates, for their valuable feedback. We are also grateful to Caroline McKusick and Imge Oranl? for commenting on drafts of this article. We would also like to thank John Hagan for supporting this project as faculty sponsor for the MacArthur Summer Research Grant that funded our fieldwork.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Kurdish women reported sexual violence in state custody during intense conflicts between the Turkish military and the guerrilla organization PKK. Drawing on archival research and in-depth interviews with lawyers and activists in Turkey, we trace the development of legal mobilization by human rights lawyers and activists who characterized state-led sexual violence in the Kurdish region as a war crime against women and brought cases before domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Inspired by the work of Kerem Altıparmak, we develop the concept of “legal exhaustion” to characterize the emotional and relational aspects of legal mobilization in the context of war and counterterrorism politics. Bringing together scholarship in sociolegal studies and critical approaches to human rights, we argue that legal exhaustion is productive—not just an unproductive and constraining state—prompting human rights lawyers to sustain legal mobilization in/outside courts and critique national and international laws.
AB - Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Kurdish women reported sexual violence in state custody during intense conflicts between the Turkish military and the guerrilla organization PKK. Drawing on archival research and in-depth interviews with lawyers and activists in Turkey, we trace the development of legal mobilization by human rights lawyers and activists who characterized state-led sexual violence in the Kurdish region as a war crime against women and brought cases before domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Inspired by the work of Kerem Altıparmak, we develop the concept of “legal exhaustion” to characterize the emotional and relational aspects of legal mobilization in the context of war and counterterrorism politics. Bringing together scholarship in sociolegal studies and critical approaches to human rights, we argue that legal exhaustion is productive—not just an unproductive and constraining state—prompting human rights lawyers to sustain legal mobilization in/outside courts and critique national and international laws.
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U2 - 10.1080/14754835.2022.2030206
DO - 10.1080/14754835.2022.2030206
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85129222413
SN - 1475-4835
VL - 21
SP - 174
EP - 190
JO - Journal of Human Rights
JF - Journal of Human Rights
IS - 2
ER -