Child Prisoners, Human Rights and Human Rights Activism: Beyond 'Emergency' and 'Exceptionality' - An Australian case study

The provides a political analysis of the implementation of human rights and the debate about power relations within the field. We trace the process by which political and legal systems may converge despite their temporary opposition in human rights cases. By means of our analysis of the process by which spaces of exceptionality are used by the legal system to challenge unfair and discriminatory political decisions toward poor and Indigenous child prisoners in Australia, the authors contend that the founding principle of popular sovereignty is excluded from both the legal and political systems when their disputes are resolved in spaces of exceptionality.