Introduction to "Human Rights & Security: Justifying Exceptions"

Since its introduction in the 1990s1, the concept of securitization has received widespread attention well beyond the field of international relations in the context of which it first appeared. The concept indicates the discursive process in which: (i) an agent claims (securitization move) the necessity to adopt exceptional measures which bring about serious violations of otherwise binding rules, in order to protect a certain value from a grave and extraordinary threat, with the scope of convincing a specific audience to accept those measures and the violations to follow; (ii) the move is successful and the audience effectively accepts the exceptional measures (securitization). One of the p…