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Network theory is a valuable tool for understanding how transnational human rights advocacy emerges and develops; how norms become salient; and how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) gain prominence within networks. This article evaluates political network theory through the case study of the transnational lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) advocacy network. Through interviews with key figures at human rights and LGBTQ NGOs, I suggest that the transnational LGBTQ network emerged through contestation with the human rights gatekeeper, Amnesty International, and its US section, AIUSA. This process of contestation would produce a specific type of gatekeeper activism that would become a defining feature of the network. Over time, the network would evolve from a collection of national groups engaging in direct action to a highly professional and international network with a dual focus on movement building in the Global South and the advancement of LGBTQ rights at the United Nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the turn of the 20th century, the United States was widely considered to be a world leader in matters of child protection and welfare, a reputation lost by the century's end. This paper suggests that the United States' loss of international esteem concerning child welfare was directly related to its practice of executing juvenile offenders. The paper analyzes why the United States continued to carry out the juvenile death penalty after the establishment of juvenile courts and other protections for child criminals. Two factors allowed the United States to continue the juvenile death penalty after most states in the international system had ended the practice: the politics of American federalism and a system of racial subordination that excluded some juvenile offenders from the umbrella of child protection measures, a conclusion suggesting that racial prejudice has interfered with U.S. compliance with international norms of child welfare and juvenile justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]