Richard Ashby Wilson

After the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent ‘war on terror’, have human rights irretrievably lost their status in international affairs and national policymaking? Or, as de Tocqueville declares, must rights always remain a fundamental part of democratic politics since they define the boundary between individual license and government tyranny? There now exists a plethora of books on international affairs after 9/11, too many to cite here, which examine the political fallout of the attacks on the United States and the subsequent U.S. response. Many are concerned with judging the proportionality of the U.S. response to Islamist terrorism, and in particular determining the justness or otherwise of U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.