The Promise of Human Rights: Constitutional Government, Democratic Legitimacy, and International Law

321 Pages·2016·2.154 MB·English

by  Jamie Mayerfeld

The Promise of Human Rights
Pennsylvania studies in Human RigHts
Bert B. Lockwood, Jr., Series Editor
a complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
The Promise of Human Rights
Constitutional Government,
Democratic Legitimacy, and International Law
Jamie Mayerfeld
univeRsity of Pennsylvania PRess
PHiladelPHia
Copyright © 2016 university of Pennsylvania Press
all rights reserved. except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly
citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without
written permission from the publisher.
Published by
university of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
Printed in the united states of america on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
isBn 978-0-8122-4816-6
for Peter Mack

C o n t e n t s
introduction 1
Chapter 1. Human Rights 19
Chapter 2. madison’s Compound Republic and
the logic of Checks and Balances 47
Chapter 3. europe and the virtues
of international Constitutionalism 73
Chapter 4. american exceptionalism and the Betrayal
of Human Rights, Part i: The torture memos 111
Chapter 5. american exceptionalism and the Betrayal
of Human Rights, Part ii: enabling torture 147
Chapter 6. The democratic legitimacy
of international Human Rights law 186
Conclusion 217
notes 229
index 289
acknowledgments 301

“[m]en can never be secure from tyranny, if there be no means to escape it till
they are perfectly under it; and, therefore, it is that they have not only a right
to get out of it, but to prevent it.”
—John locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690
“no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause.”
—James madison, The Federalist, 1787