Locking In Human Rights in Africa: Analyzing State Accession to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Mobilising international embeddedness to resist radical policy change and dismantling: the case of Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022)

“…While not always explicit about it, this assumption certainly speaks to what International Relations scholarship has long treated as "lock-in effects": the constraints on the policy options of current and future governments generated by countries' participation in international institutions or signing international treaties. Several instances of locking-in have been studied in the past, particularly when countries sign human rights treaties during democratisation or political transition moments, or become a member of regional and supranational institutions, like the European Union or the African Union (Dunn, 2005;Moravcsik, 2000;Zschirnt, 2018). Yet, so far, little is known about whether and how other transnational policy processes including when a country acts as a major "policy exporter" or "technical cooperation provider" contributes to locking-in States and their domestic policies and, if so, how.…”