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Why Do Regimes Commit to Human Rights Treaties?

Why Do Regimes Commit to Human Rights Treaties?. The United Nations Human Rights Conventions Instructor: James Raymond Vreeland. Central question in today’s class: Why sacrifice sovereignty?. A central question throughout the course The logic may depend on political regime. The Wimpy Story.

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Why Do Regimes Commit to Human Rights Treaties?

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  1. Why Do Regimes Commit to Human Rights Treaties? The United Nations Human Rights Conventions Instructor: James Raymond Vreeland

  2. Central question in today’s class:Why sacrifice sovereignty? • A central question throughout the course • The logic may depend on political regime

  3. The Wimpy Story Brought to you by: Moravcsik, Andrew. 2000. The Origins of Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar Europe. International Organization 54 (2):217–52.

  4. New Puzzle: Europe post-WWII • Regarding: European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) • Who supports strict enforcement?

  5. Why are democracies willing to sacrifice sovereignty? • Because they are UNSURE of their survival • If they fear the return of autocracy, • They want to hand over prosecutorial authority to an international body • They give up some power so that their potential successors won’t have it either • Does this make dictatorship less valuable? • Perhaps this makes democracy more likely to endure?

  6. We call this story: “LOCK-IN”

  7. Lock-in • European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) established a Commission on Human Rights • could investigate the case, seek to settle it, or forward it under certain circumstances to a court of human rights, whose decisions governments are legally bound to follow • Two optional clauses of the ECHR, Articles 25 and 46, were subsequently adopted by all member states • they permit individual and state-to-state petitions and recognize the compulsory jurisdiction of the court • Parties to the ECHR must subject themselves to the Court’s jurisdiction • Established “effective supranational adjudication” in Europe • Established-democracies & dictatorships opposed binding human rights enforcement (“sovereignty costs”) • But for NEW DEMOCRACIES, the benefits of reducing future political uncertainty outweigh the “sovereignty costs” • “self-binding” or “lock-in” is useful to newly established democracies

  8. Alternative way to test • STATA! • Draws on theory/empirics regarding the survival of democracy (Przeworski et al. 2000. Democracy & Development) • Uses “contested elections” & “per capita income” instead of “undemocratic”/“newly established”/“established democracy”

  9. Moravcsik Predictions: • Dictatorships do not want to cede authority • They commit torture! (So they really lose from enforcement regime) • Established democracies do not want to cede authority • They gain nothing (and potentially lose – just in case they want to have the ability to torture) • Democracies “at risk” want to cede! • They want to establish human rights – enforced from outside, in case democracy collapses!

  10. Take-away • Domestic political determinants of international relations!

  11. Thank youWE ARE GLOBAL GEORGETOWN!

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