ABSTRACT
This Chapter considers the manner in which the leaders of both Egypt and Syria have subjugated their international human rights obligations to ensure maintenance of their power in light of Islamic challenges. It demonstrates that the malaise of the Middle East is not solely the result of outside actors who have treated those in the region as an underclass of the international society, but also results from leaders who have internalised the qualitative exceptionalism of international law. In law, human rights are not absolute. There are, in international human rights law, as Rosalyn Higgins wrote in 1977, ‘techniques of accommodation’, which allow States to dictate the extent to which they will incorporate human rights law into their domestic system. In both Egypt and Syria, torture remains a live State policy in prisons, while the lack of judicial oversight of the executive organ means that the security apparatuses are working outside a legal framework—effectively outlaws.
