ABSTRACT

This chapter analyzes how human rights have featured in the foreign policy response of the Bush Administrations to the atrocities of 9/11. The specific aims of this chapter are twofold. The first is to examine how the hegemonic discourse has been asserted in the official narrative of the war on terror. The second is to detail how the hegemonic discourse produced a politically contingent understanding of the war on terror. This chapter therefore focuses not solely upon how policies implemented by the Bush Administrations in the conduct of the war have impacted upon human rights, but also the analysis seeks to contribute to the existing literature on the subject by focusing on the political function of the discourse through which these policies have been explained to the public.