The United Nations Treaty Bodies and Universal Periodic Review: Advancing Human Rights by Preventing Politicization?

Carraro, Valentina

doi:10.1353/hrq.2017.0055

Cited by 23 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…us, the UPR's transparency provisions cannot prevent political bias to emerge and, as a consequence, the mechanism was perceived as unfair. 28 Equally surprising is our finding that the IRM's lack of transparency has not negatively a ected its perceived fairness. According to directly involved o cials, the confidential setting seemingly did not stimulate politically motivated behavior.…”

Section: Proceduralismmentioning

confidence: 64%

Leaving the Doors Open or Keeping Them Closed? The Impact of Transparency on the Authority of Peer Reviews in International Organizations

Carraro¹,

Jongen

2018

Global Governance

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although transparency is frequently employed to enhance the legitimacy of public organizations, several scholars point to its potentially negative implications. This study analyzes the impact of transparency on the authority of peer reviews in international organizations. Authority, here conceived as rooted in legitimacy beliefs, is crucial for peer reviews to produce effects. This research is based on results from an online survey and forty-three interviews with actors involved in two United Nations peer reviews: the Universal Periodic Review in human rights and the Implementation Review Mechanism in the fight against corruption. The article shows that transparency positively affects the perceived development of pressure, yet negatively influences mutual learning and appears to be unable to ensure equal treatment of states.

show abstract

Section: Proceduralismmentioning

confidence: 64%

Leaving the Doors Open or Keeping Them Closed? The Impact of Transparency on the Authority of Peer Reviews in International Organizations

Carraro¹,

Jongen

2018

Global Governance

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Likewise, neighboring countries or states with a similar legal system are at times perceived to be more lenient toward each other (interviews 8, 40, 41, 42, 44), with several delegates admitting to do so themselves (anonymous interviews). This situation is not unique to the WGB but also happens in the GRECO (interviews 22,31,34,35) and other peer reviews, such as the Universal Periodic Review on Human Rights (Carraro, 2017). The plenary can partly offset such politically-motivated behavior, as delegates that themselves received certain recommendations may be particularly adamant on making sure that other states do not get away with fewer or less far-reaching recommendations than they did (interviews 33,41).…”

Section: Proceduralismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The authority of peer reviews among states in the global governance of corruption

Jongen

2018

Review of International Political Economy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article researches the instrument of peer review among states, which is widely used by international organizations to monitor state compliance with international anticorruption norms. Despite their widespread use, little is known about the conditions under which peer reviews bear significance in the global fight against corruption. This article seeks to shed light on this by considering the authority that three major, yet hitherto understudied, peer reviews carry: the OECD Working Group on Bribery, the Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption, and the Implementation Review Mechanism of the UN Convention against Corruption. Authority is conceptualized as a social relation between the institution carrying authority (the peer review) and the intended audience (mostly states). Drawing upon original survey data and expert interviews, the findings reveal that the three peer reviews have different degrees of authority. The article subsequently explains the observed variation in authority, by looking at the membership sizes and compositions of the peer reviews, their institutional designs, and the types of officials that are involved in the review process.

show abstract

“…By examining dyadic relationships, Terman & Voeten (2018) confirm the presence of a politicized, selective process where states are more lenient towards strategic relationships and that their recommendations are accepted more often than identical recommendations from states with fewer strategic ties. Carraro (2017) investigates that the perceived level of politicization in the UPR is high among member state representatives, but also brings about a higher responsibility to comply with commitments. Chow (2017) mentions that authoritarian states, such as North Korea, utilize UPR's dialogue mechanism to justify its non-compliance, frame its human rights record in a positive light, and to condemn its political rival's human rights violations.…”

Section: Relational Mechanism Of the Uprmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…of the universality of a certain issue and how countries may employ cultural relativism to justify their human rights transgressions in the review process (Carraro 2017). This article focuses on the country bias aspect of politicization rooted in national power and social relationships.…”

Section: Relational Mechanism Of the Uprmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The UPR's universality is one of its most significant characteristics that differentiate the state-to-state accountability process from the previous human rights institution, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). The CHR was accused of selectivity, politicization, and double standards in scrutinizing state human rights violations (Landolt 2013;Carraro 2017). This culminated into pressure for a universal and equal process leading to the UPR.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Power, Politicization, and Network Positions : Explaining State Participation in the UPR

Bae¹

2018

kjis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Review (UPR) ensures formal equality among participating member states. However, previous literature emphasizes the interference of state interest and politics in undermining the universal peer evaluation mechanism. In this article, I argue that while the UPR shows certain bias in state behavior for providing recommendations, the UPR otherwise functions according to its purpose of condemning human rights violations. I find that member states' human rights index scores and the level of democracy correlate with the number of recommendations received and the betweenness centrality measures. First, I apply social network analysis (SNA) on state interaction in the UPR literature enabling inter-network comparisons with international trade relations, military dispute, and alliance relationships. The QAP analyses depict that the UPR network has a low association with the military dispute network and the alliance network. Second, individual level analyses demonstrate that states with higher national capabilities and a greater amount of trade exports are more likely to provide recommendations. Nonetheless, higher human rights index levels lead to more recommendation providing activity while smaller in magnitude. However, the amount of recommendations received by a state suggests that states with low human rights records and low levels of democracy receive more recommendations. Furthermore, the betweenness centrality measures highly correlate with the human rights index and the level of democracy implying that the general standard of human rights influences the degree of state centrality in the UPR network. This study acknowledges the presence of politicization among states in providing recommendations, but also ensures that the UPR is shaming states according to its main purpose in criticizing the human rights violations of non-compliers.

show abstract

The United Nations Treaty Bodies and Universal Periodic Review: Advancing Human Rights by Preventing Politicization?

Cited by 23 publications

References 33 publications

Leaving the Doors Open or Keeping Them Closed? The Impact of Transparency on the Authority of Peer Reviews in International Organizations

Leaving the Doors Open or Keeping Them Closed? The Impact of Transparency on the Authority of Peer Reviews in International Organizations

The authority of peer reviews among states in the global governance of corruption

Power, Politicization, and Network Positions : Explaining State Participation in the UPR

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About