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46 Harv. Int'l L.J. 427 (2005)
Liberal Internationalism, Feminism, and the Suppression of Critique: Contemporary Approaches to Global Order in the United States

handle is hein.journals/hilj46 and id is 433 raw text is: VOLUME 46, NUMBER 2, SUMMER 2005 Liberal Internationalism, Feminism, and the Suppression of Critique: Contemporary Approaches to Global Order in the United States Karen Engle* INTRODUCTION I have been asked to reflect on the significance of the range of new visions of global public order now circulating in the United States, and to consider, in particular, what has happened to the liberal consensus of twenty years ago. There are, of course, many directions that a response might take. One could question whether there really was a liberal consensus twenty years ago and, if there was a seeming consensus, what underlying concerns and ten- sions it attempted to mediate. One could focus on political science, econom- ics, history, critical theory, postcolonial theory, or feminist theory and dis- cuss how one or all of those has played a role in various challenges to liberal legal internationalism inside the United States. One could attempt to under- stand liberal legal internationalism in relationship to U.S. foreign relations and question the extent to which it emerged and coalesced around a particu- lar view of the United States' role in the global order. One might consider what, if any, causal relationship exists between the dissolution of the appar- ent consensus and the rise of what many consider to be a new American excep- tionalism. And one might even consider whether liberal legal internationalism has unwittingly participated in constructing a new American exceptionalism. I will not explore all of these questions here. Yet I will attempt to touch upon many of them through the consideration of a couple of recent examples of the Bush administration's deployment of international legal rhetoric and process to protect women's rights, and by examining the various critiques they have and have not engendered. In particular, I will look at the Bush ad- ministration's intervention in Afghanistan and its support of international ef- forts to end sex trafficking. * W. H. Francis, Jr., Professor in Law and Director, Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, University of Texas School of Law. Thanks to Hillary Charlesworth, Ibrahim Gas- sama, and David Kennedy for comments on early versions of this Article, and to Jeremy Freeman and Lucas Lixinski for research assistance.

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