This book offers a critical reinterpretation of Western European States’ programmatic support for International Human Rights Law (IHRL) since the 1970s. It examines the systemic or structural constraints inherent to the international legal system and argues that order trumps justice in Western Europe’s promotion of international human rights norms.

The book shows that IHRL evolved as a result of a tension between two forces: A European understanding of international society, based on order, the centrality of the State and a minimalist conception of human rights; and a civil...