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Contestation of international norms has become the new focus of IR norm research. The optimism of the 1990s that fundamental liberal norms would diffuse globally has remained unfulfilled in recent years—even human rights norms have witnessed strong contestation. Time and again, controversy has erupted regarding international norms such as the ban on torture or the Responsibility to Protect. Meanwhile, we know little about how such controversy affects the robustness of norms—whether it contributes to their weakening or to their strengthening. Existing research offers two competing hypotheses: One branch of norm research often conceptualizes contestation as a sign of norm weakening. By contrast, another branch assigns contestation a normative power of its own, which strengthens norms. It does not specify the limits of such normative power, however. In this article, we argue that contestation per se is a poor predictor of norm robustness. The type of contestation a norm faces matters. Contestation can either (1) address the dimension of application of a norm or (2) examine its validity by questioning the righteousness of the claims a norm makes. The article draws on two illustrative case studies of extensively contested norms, the Responsibility to Protect and the ban on commercial whaling. We argue that widespread contestation of the very validity of a norm is likely to lead to a loss of norm robustness. Applicatory contestation, by contrast, can—under specific circumstances—even strengthen it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In summer 2004, an UN-sponsored international rule of law commission based on an initiative of the Guatemalan human rights community was rejected by Guatemalan political elites. In 2007, a new version, the International Commission against Impunity (CICIG), was approved by the Guatemalan Congress and has since been active in the country, supporting the modernisation of the Guatemalan judicial system and the investigation and prosecution of criminal networks. The CICIG has been hailed as part of a new generation of rule of law promotion that addresses the problems of post-conflict states. How did this change in elite support come about? Neither increased pressure from the international community nor changes in the elite groups in power can fully explain this shift. Rather, Guatemalan elites actively reshaped the commission; in addition, the human rights community reframed it to better fit the risk perceptions of the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reactions to the promotion of human rights norms in post-conflict countries often clash with central assumptions of established theoretical approaches to norm diffusion. Socialization scholars expect either resistance when strong veto players are present and when resonance is missing, or extensive adoption of norms when states are vulnerable to transnational advocacy. Others predict decoupling processes when local capacities for implementation are scarce. Research on norm localization, in contrast, foresees the reinterpretation and modification of norms. The concept of localization, however, is often used as a catch-all category. Based on a new three-step model of translation into discourse, law, and implementation, I distinguish different types of translation. This conceptual approach to norm translation gives an interactional account of how certain types of translation emerge and shows the limits of "cures" for missing compliance proposed in existing approaches. The discussion draws on examples of human rights promotion in post-conflict Guatemala. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]