What influences the Northern media's coverage of events and abuses in explicit human rights terms? Do international NGOs have an impact, and, if so, when are they most effective? This article addresses these questions with regression analysis of human rights reporting by The Economist and Newsweek from 1986 to 2000, covering 145 countries. First, it finds that these two media sources cover abuses in human rights terms more frequently when they occur in countries with higher levels of state repression, economic development, population, and Amnesty International attention. There is also some evidence that political openness, number of battle-deaths, and civil societies affect coverage, although these effects were not robust. Second, it finds that Amnesty International's press releases appear to have less impact on media coverage when discussing abuses in countries that are central to the media's zone of concern. Indeed, Amnesty's press advocacy may be more effective when addressing violations in lesser-noticed countries. The article attributes this to the saturation of coverage of abuses in highly mediatized countries. Cumulative attention by multiple journalists and others raises a country's media profile but also makes it more difficult for any one voice to be heard. The authors conclude that Amnesty's press advocacy may have greater media impact when focusing on abuses in countries located away from the media's core areas of concern. Overall, the authors are encouraged by the Northern media's sensitivity to actual patterns of repression and to Amnesty's lobbying, since both indicate that the media is potentially a useful ally in efforts to combat abuses worldwide. Yet, the discouraging effects of poverty on the media's human rights coverage are cause for concern.

No abstract

This article outlines a human rights framework for analyzing violent internal conflict, "translating" social-scientific findings on conflict risk factors into human rights language. It is argued that discrimination and violations of social and economic rights function as underlying causes of conflict, creating the deep grievances and group identities that may, under some circumstances, motivate collective violence. Violations of civil and political rights, by contrast, are more clearly identifiable as direct conflict triggers. Abuse of personal integrity rights is associated with escalation, and intermediately repressive regimes appear to be most at risk. Denial of political participation rights is associated with internal conflict because full democracies experience less conflict. Yet democratization itself is dangerous, since regime transition is also a major conflict risk factor.