No abstract

Why and how do international courts justify decisions with citations to their own case law? We argue that, like domestic review courts, international courts use precedent at least in part to convince 'lower' (domestic) courts of the legitimacy of judgements. Several empirical observations are consistent with this view, which are examined through a network analysis of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) citations. First, the Court cites precedent based on the legal issues in the case, not the country of origin. Second, the Court is more careful to embed judgements in its existing case law when the expected value of persuading domestic judges is highest. These findings contribute to a developing literature that suggests international and domestic review courts develop their authority in similar ways.

Independent domestic courts play important roles in enforcing international human rights agreements, thereby providing a mechanism by which international institutions can affect government policy+ Yet this enforcement power is constrained not only by independence but also by the courts' ability to overcome information problems+ Domestic courts' enforcement power depends on information in two ways: the costs of producing legally admissible evidence of abuses and the applicable legal standards of proof+ When countries ratify international agreements, judicial enforcement can improve government practices when evidence-production costs and standards of proof are low, but not otherwise+ With respect to personal integrity rights violations, evidence is especially difficult to obtain, and standards of proof are high, meaning that the courts will not be able to constrain government practices+ By contrast, evidence-production costs and standards of proof are lower for other civil rights violations, so courts will be able to prosecute offenders and bring governments into line with their international commitments+ Consistent with this theory, I find that commitments to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights~ICCPR! have significantly improved governments' respect for the freedoms of speech, association, assembly, and religion+ With respect to personal integrity rights, however, I find that commitments to the ICCPR have not improved government practices+ Do commitments to international institutions have independent effects on state behavior? This central question in the international relations literature has received critical attention in recent years, resulting in both theory and empirical evidence regarding the effects of commitments to international institutions in a variety of

Do national legislatures constitute a mechanism by which commitments to international human rights treaties can be made credible? Treaty ratification can activate domestic mechanisms that make repression more costly, and the legislative opposition can enhance these mechanisms. Legislative veto players raise the cost of formalistic repressive strategies by declining to consent to legislation. Executives can still choose to rely on more costly, extralegal strategies, but these could result in severe penalties for the leader and require the leader to expend resources to hide. Especially in treaty member-states, legislatures can use other powers to also increase the cost of extralegal violations, which can further reduce repression. By using an empirical strategy that attempts to address the selection effects in treaty commitment decisions, I show that positive effects of human rights treaties increase when there are more legislative veto players.

The effects of international institutions on state behavior make up a key research agenda in international-relations scholarship. Because states self-select into treaties, we cannot infer that these commitments have causal effects unless we address this selection effect. I explain the significant limitations of the methods used thus far to overcome this problem and argue that a more effective approach must take into account states' treaty preferences. I describe a novel combination of ideal-point estimation and propensity-score matching that can estimate the probabilities of treaty commitment and use them to test hypotheses. I use this procedure to test the effects of three key international human-rights treaties. My results provide significant new findings regarding the effects of these important agreements. I show that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women has significantly improved respect for women's rights, but that the Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights have not had significant effects on human rights.