'Why Did Torture Become Unacceptable in the 1970s? Algeria, Greece and Brazil Compared'

Tuesday 21 October, 1:00-2:00pm
at Room 212, Level 2, 234 Queensberry Street, The University of Melbourne

presented by

Dr Barbara Keys

(Department of History/CERC, The University of Melbourne)

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Abstract

Global opinion about torture underwent a key shift in response to the use of torture in three key cases in the 1960s and early 1970s: Algeria during the conflict with France in the late 1950s and early 1960s; Greece under the junta after 1967; and Brazil under a military dictatorship that began to torture political opponents in 1969. The paper focuses on the arguments and tactics developed by transnational networks of intellectuals, journalists, religious groups, and nongovernmental organizations who opposed the use of torture on new grounds and in new ways. This paper offers several explanations for the growth of an anti-torture norm and a more interventionist approach to human rights.

Biog.

Barbara Keys is a specialist in 20th century international history who received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2001. Her prize-winning book, Globalizing Sport: National Rivalry and International Community in the 1930s (Harvard University Press, 2006) is a transnational study of the emergence of international sports competitions as a significant political and cultural force in the 1930s. She is currently working on two books, one on the international politics of torture in the 1970s and another on the origins of the human rights revolution of the 1970s.

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