The problem of impunity -- the difficulty of punishing powerful wrongdoers -- has given birth to a new and potentially graver menace, the scourge of imperviousness. For years, advocates and activists have struggled against impunity, the lack of punishment for most of the worst human rights offenders. They decry the emboldening effect of this lack of sanction on other abusers, who dismiss international law and norms as toothless. But now, as Russian President Vladimir Putin muscles his way into Ukraine and Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi commits travesties of justice, we see impunity feeding into something potentially worse: imperviousness.
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