Explaining the Deterrence Effect of Human Rights Prosecutions for Transitional Countries1

Abstract

Human rights prosecutions have been the major policy innovation of the late twentieth century designed to address human rights violations. The main justification for such prosecutions is that sanctions are necessary to deter future violations. In this article, we use our new data set on domestic and international human rights prosecutions in 100 transitional countries to explore whether prosecuting human rights violations can decrease repression. We find that human rights prosecutions after transition lead to improvements in human rights protection, and that human rights prosecutions have a deterrence impact beyond the confines of the single country. We also explore the mechanisms through which prosecutions lead to improvements in human rights. We argue that impact of prosecutions is the result of both normative pressures and material punishment and provide support for this argument with a comparison of the impact of prosecutions and truth commissions, which do not involve material punishment.Mass human rights violations are among the most pressing international problems facing policymakers today. Many more people were killed by their own governments in the twentieth century than the combat deaths of all the wars combined. 2 The early years of the twenty-first century give no indication that this trend is abating. Yet, while the academic literature on the causes of war is well developed, the literature on causes of human rights violations is still relatively new. Because human rights violations are so prevalent, the discussion of how to prevent or diminish repression has important theoretical and policy implications. 1 We thank Songying Fang,

Evaluating the Success of Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone and Beyond

“…Kim and Sikkink find that human rights prosecutions and TRCs lead to improvements in human rights protections, and that trials also deter future atrocity. 18 This is in contrast to Snyder and Vinjamuri, who find that war crimes trials do very little to deter future atrocity, and suggest that amnesties are better able to guarantee durable peace than trials. 19 In the most comprehensive large-n study of TJ to date, Olsen, Payne and Reiter find, in contrast to both of these studies, that single TJ mechanisms do not have significant positive effects on human rights or democracy (they do not look at peace).…”

Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur

“…Her statistical analyses suggest, cautiously worded, that prosecutions of human rights perpetrators, including high-level actors, while achieving retribution, do not systematically produce counterproductive consequences as some critics have suggested. They may in fact advance later human rights and democracy records, especially in situations where trials are accompanied by truth commissions (Kim and Sikkink 2010). 5 Observations by practitioners support such findings.…”

Difusores y justicieros. Las instituciones judiciales en la política de derechos humanos

“…Dada la centralidad de la sanción, adquieren importancia las características del proceso penal, sobre todo la posibilidad de participación de las víctimas en dicho proceso (Michel y Sikkink, 2014), así como otras condiciones del contexto político, por ejemplo: las características de la transición a la democracia (negociada o no negociada) (Olsen et al, 2010a; las provisiones de los tratados de derechos humanos sobre la posibilidad de hacer accountable a individuos por violaciones de derechos humanos (Dancy y Sikkink, 2012) y la posibilidad de imitación de otras experiencias regionales (Kim y Sikkink, 2010).…”