Trumpist practices towards the International Human Rights Regime: normative contestation and its radicalization

Abstract

The central aim of this article is both to outline and understand how the Trump administration has deteriorated and weakened the norms and institutions that are constitutive of the International Human Rights Regime (IHRR) through a largely radicalized normative contestation movement. The research employs a variant of International Relations Constructivism, called norm contestation, in order to demand from it the comprehensive-analytical lens to the movements carried out by Trump vis-à-vis the regime in question. Thus, with the help of this theoretical-conceptual lens, we have mapped - in a non-exhaustive way - practices in which the Trump administration clearly mobilized norm contestation. The discussion reveals that the government's actions have gone beyond simple opposition, manifesting themselves in a systematic boycott of international human rights institutions and norms. As such, we conclude that the Trump administration has not only challenged these norms, but has promoted orchestrated dissent, resulting in a significant impact on the IHRR, given the centrality of the United States' great power management at the international level.