Honors Theses
Date of Award
1-1-2010
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Croft Institute for International Studies
First Advisor
Douglass Sullivan-Gonzalez
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
KENT DOUGLAS FORD: The Use of Torture as a Tool ofAnti-Terrorism: Deriving Lessons for the Future through a Comparison of Argentina’s Dirty War to the United States’ Global War on Terror (Under the direction ofDr. Douglass Sullivan-Gonzalez)
A frequent criticism ofinternational law, particularly the area concerning human rights, is that it attempts to create order in an anarchic state without the analogous counterpart of domestic law’s enforcement agents. This thesis looks at how the international human rights legal regime has developed since World War II in order to understand its role in the systematic use of enforced disappearances and torture in Argentina’s 1970s dirty war and the United States’ current global war on terror. Chapter one provides a history ofthe development ofthe law and some analysis as to its efficacy. Chapter two offers a significant background ofthe events that took place in Argentina, an understanding of which is necessary for chapter three to draw parallels between the Argentine and the U.S. cases. Building on the Argentine background, chapter three shows that the trajectory of events in the United States case was the same as in Argentina’s, even though the scale of abuse was not as severe. Chapter four concludes the comparison by taking lessons from Argentina’s attempts at reconciliation and applying them to suggestions for the current U.S. government to move America past this dark chapter in its history.
Recommended Citation
Ford, Kent Douglas, "The Use of Torture as a Tool of Anti-terrorism: Deriving Lessons for the Future through a Comparison of Argentina’s Dirty War to the United States’ Global War on Terror" (2010). Honors Theses. 2776.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2776
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