Danielle Celermajer is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney. She received a grant from the European Union to establish a Masters of Human Rights and Democratization in the Asia-Pacific course and a further one to work on the prevention of torture. Her books include Sins of the Nation and the Ritual of Apology (Cambridge, 2009), Power, Judgment and Political Evil: Hannah Arendt's Promise (with Andrew Schaap and Vrasidas Karalis, 2010), and A Cultural History of Law in the Modern Age (with Richard Sherwin, forthcoming).

Introduction; 1. The principal approaches preventing torture; 2. How effective has torture prevention been? 3. The situational conditions of institutional violence; 4. The production of worlds of torture; 5. Agents, structures and the social imaginary of human rights; 6. Taking situational theory to the field; 7. The promises and hazards of practice; Conclusion.