This article examines the domestic impact of supranational human rights litigation on the acknowledgment of state violence, in the context of macroprocesses of global governance. The article’s argument is that the impact of supranational human rights litigation on the process of acknowledgment must be seen through counternarratives on state violence. The article undertakes a detailed textual analysis of the truth claims and denial strategies that emerged from the European Court of Human Rights proceedings on state violence, during Turkey’s struggle against the armed group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It assesses these in the context of the human rights reforms that were created in response to pressure from European-level governance processes. This article focuses on the importance of the acknowledgment and truth-telling processes, and points out the limitations of the technical-bureaucratic human rights reform interventions in the context of state violence.

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