Ilia Xypolia - Human Rights, Imperialism, and Corruption in US Foreign Policy

The traditional human rights frame creates a paradigm by which the duty bearers (state) and rights holders (civil society organizations) interests collide over the limits of enjoyment and enforcement. The series departs from the paradigm by centering peripheral yet powerful actors that agitate for intervention and influence in the (re)shaping of rights discourse in the midst of grave insecurities. The series privileges a call and response between theoretical inquiry and empirical investigation as contributors critically assess human rights interventions mediated by spatial, temporal, geopolitical and other dimensions. An interdisciplinary dialogue is key as the editors encourage multiple approaches such as law and society, political economy, historiography, legal ethnography, feminist security studies, and multi-media.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15595

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This book has been in the making for several years and I owe several people gratitude. I will be forever indebted to Bulent Gokay, a mentor and friend who has ignited my intellectual interests and to Farzana Shain. Much appreciation goes to Marios Evriviades for his sage advice throughout the years. I would also like to thank, my editor Dr. Anca Pusca of Palgrave for her meticulous work during the production process of the book.

Many thanks are extended to my colleagues at the PIR Department at the University of Aberdeen. The critical sharpness of the Arab Transformations research team emcouraged me to anchor my focus into such heterodox scholarship. I would like to express my gratitude to my Human Rights in Global Politics students whose fierce debates helped me refine the arguments presented here. Different friends and colleagues have engaged in countless hours of conversation and provided advice and support. Giulia Mengatos and Dionysis Nikolopoulos prowess and input have been invaluable for the development of ideas contained in this book.

Finally, on a more personal note, I have been blessed with an amazing family. My sincere gratitude to my wonderful parents, Theodoros and Charalampia, for their sacrifices and eternal love, my marvellous siblings, Penelope, Dimitris, and Kyriaki, along with my in-laws for their steadfast support for this and other projects. The recent additions to the family Thodoris, George, and Charalampia have been a source of pure joy and light. My appreciation and love are also extended to the families of Panagiotis Xypolias, Christoula Sidiropoulou, and Spyros Chinaris who have endlessly supported and encouraged me. Many thanks to my allerliefste Peter Loovers for his love and patience, for all the hard work, and for being a constant source of inspiration. Each page has been profoundly enriched by years of conversations with him. So too has my life. Last but certainly not least, to my son Charalampos to whom I dedicate this book, with my deepest and heartfelt gratitude and love for always giving me a reason to be hopeful.

Aberdeen, Scotland

October 2021

The introduction lays out the key arguments and the outline of the book. The recent introduction of corruption into the US State Departments Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices serves the US-specific interpretation of human rights that diverge from international standards and embedded in US imperialism. The discourse on human rights promotion has been criticised as the moral fig leaf covering other US interests. Yet, the ACRs ultimately are a mechanism that serves the function of the Foucauldian Panopticon apparatus. In particular, ACRs are an essential part of the power apparatus that observes, examines, and normalises the discourse on countries human rights practices. Through this metaphor the importance of knowledge production is underlined.