Hard and Soft Commitments to Human Rights Treaties, 1966–2000¹

Abstract

What factors determine whether and how deeply countries will commit to the international human rights regime? Using data for up to 142 countries between 1966 and 2000, this article analyzes patterns of membership to the International Human Rights Covenants. The analysis produced two main conclusions. First, the potential costs associated with joining a treaty, rather than its substantive content, motivates the decision to join. Treaties that protect different rights but establish comparable implementation mechanisms exhibit similar patterns of membership, whereas treaties that protect identical rights but establish different implementation provisions exhibit dissimilar patterns of membership. Second, rates of treaty membership differ by level of commitment. Countries that sign human rights treaties differ from countries that ratify. Results are interpreted with respect to four theories of commitment and compliance: realism, liberalism, constructivism, and sociological institutionalism. Theories that emphasize the importance of a treaty’s costs (realism and institutionalism) fare better than theories that prioritize a treaty’s content (liberalism and constructivism).

Limited Gains, Enduring Violations

“…This aspect is absent from the state discourse. The contrast in state and CSO discourse links to the extant literature on the distinction between framing ha d a d soft ights (Cole, 2009). The former are legally enshrined and enforceable (e.g.…”

Humanitarian Crisis as Everyday Life

“…Research on refugees and humanitarianism has emphasized the exceptional characteristics of these social phenomena. Human rights scholars have highlighted the absence of protections, framing the people living amid humanitarian crises as those who deserve to have their rights protected and often don't (Blau and Moncada 2007;Cole 2009;Hagan and Levi 2007;Hilhorst and Jansen 2012;Verdirame and Harrell-Bond 2005). Immigration researchers highlight the place of refugees in the wider world of migration as one of particular vulnerability or opportunity compared to other migrants (Bloemraad 2006;Guenther, Pendaz, and Songora Makene 2011;Lauer 2008;Walsh 2008).…”

Public Support for International Human Rights Institutions: A Cross‐National and Multilevel Analysis

“…These global and regional institutions form the backbone of the international human rights regime, which in turn helps establish human rights as a core principle of the international community. So far scholars have been preoccupied with the question of why states support this institutionalization process (Cole , ; Goodliffe and Hawkins ; Hafner‐Burton et al. ; Hathaway , ; Moravcsik ; Simmons ; Sutton and Norgaard ; Vreeland ; Wotipka and Tsutsui ).…”