In current norm research in International Relations, the contestation and the dynamics around norm have become the new focus of investigation and theory building. Conflicts around norms and their application can lead to norm change which can be either norm strengthening or weakening. Contestation can bring about new legitimacy and consensus around norms or lead to potentially dangerous disintegration. But under which conditions does contestation lead to norm decay or to norm strengthening?
We argue that the type of norm contestation matters to explain if contestation has norm strengthening or norm weakening effects. While contestation around the application of norms can lead to a specification in which situation a norm applies and how it needs to be applied, contestation of the validity of a norm questions the norm as such and can lead to a weakening of the norm’s robustness.
The paper will, in a first step, discuss the different approaches to norm contestation that can be found in IR research. In a second step, it will present the argument and a typology of norm contestation that is based on a discourse theory of law and normativity. The argument will, in a third step, be plausibilized by analyzing the contestatory and justificatory practices around the responsibility to protect and the prohibition of torture.
