In their article, Judith Blau and Alberto Moneada deliver a provocative argument about how we should imagine and institutionally act upon human rights violations. Inspired by the internationally quickening pace of legal authority in prosecuting violations of humanitarian law, Blau and Moneada build an argument that there is little reason to distinguish between violations of human rights and of humanitarian law. Their article suggests profound ways in which a sociological lens might transform current debate. First, Blau and Moneada refuse to ignore a wide array of human misery and suffering simply because there is no individual perpetrator, and thereby defend a range of economic and social rights; and second, they envision remedies that extend beyond formal institutions, and include communities, civil society organizations, and individual citizens in dialogue, sanctions, and reforms. In creating a sociological approach that can inform and act upon human misery, the article is an evocative example of democratic politics pursued with sociological commitment (Bourdieu et ai, 1993; Wacquant, 2005).
We focus on a central aspect of Blau and Moncada's argument: that a wider range of human rights violations ought to be regarded as justiciable, legally actionable, and formally criminalized. Although we share their normative goals, the turn to law they advocate also presents us with concerns. Our goal is to induce a reflexivity about our scholarly and political tools: we interrogate the turn to law in determining the content, scope, and solution for human rights violations by flagging some of how law operates in transnational context.