LAW WITHOUT VIOLENCE: HUMAN RIGHTS ADJUDICATION AS WORLD BUILDING

In Violence and the Word, Professor Robert Cover describes law as "tak[ing] place in a field of pain and death."1 International law and human rights adjudication, in particular, could not be more different. Human rights courts lack the power to compel adherence to their decisions through violence.2 They are designed for voluntary participation. This poses a problem for those who view compliance as the goal of law. But it is consistent with an alternative account of human rights adjudication as world building - the creation of a normative vision for transforming the status quo. The claim of this Note is that human rights courts can succeed without violence, and that the nonviolent character of human rights courts is perhaps best suited to their liberatory promise. When courts move people to act not out of fear of adverse consequences but from conviction, they can inspire lasting transformation. And human rights courts, unburdened with the restraint appropriate to the use of violence, can make greater moral demands. This Note proceeds in four parts. Part I describes the problem of violence in human rights and situates the argument within scholarly debate. Part II explains how human rights courts lack coercive enforcement. Part III advances the idea of human rights adjudication as world building. Part IV considers the benefits of law without violence.