Why Do Regimes Commit to Human Rights Treaties? Badasses & Wimps

1. Why Do Regimes Commit to Human Rights Treaties?Badasses & Wimps Human Rights Part 2 – The United Nations Human Rights Conventions INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (Course number GOVT 298, Spring 2010) Instructor: James Raymond Vreeland

2. Plan • Review last class • Badass • Wimp • Putting them together

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

4. Last time, the CAT…

5. The Puzzle:

6. Answers: • Regional “norms” or “diffusion” • Political cover (the Hathaway Story) • Note that in this story, domestic constraints are binding in democracy, not dictatorship, thus the different patterns • Domestic institutions • Binding under democracy • Pressure under dictatorship • The divided nature of the multiparty dictatorship causes both pressure for signing the CAT and, ironically, for more torture • Unified dictatorships face less pressure • They don’t want to sign because they are pro-torture! Ironically, they inspire so much fear, they don’t have to torture as much

7. 4. The Badass Story… for dictators • Ratifying the CAT signals RESOLVE • It commits the dictator to prison (somewhere) if he should ever fall from power • So, it signals just how sure he is of staying in power • The “wimps” don’t sign

8. Rosendorff’s broader view: • International institutions as credible 3rd party signals to domestic constituents • Trade agreements • Used by democracies to signal low-protectionism • World Bank • Collects data as a credible 3rd party for democracies to be transparent • The CAT • Used by dictatorships to signal leader-resolve

9. And now…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.

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

11. 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?

12. We call this story: “LOCK-IN”

13. 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

15. 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”

16. 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!

17. Can the Badass & Wimp stories fit together? • Were there any “badasses” (high-leader-resolve) dictatorships in Europe? • What if there had been?

18. Putting the stories together:What do each of the following want? Dictatorships Democracies Strongly established dictators: Can use HR agreements to CREDIBLY signal resolve (Rosendorff) Vulnerable dictators: Afraid of HR agreements because they commit torture, and might fall from power some day (Rosendorff) Vulnerable democracies: Can use HR agreements to LOCK-IN policy (Moravcsik) Strongly established democracies: Don’t need HR agreements to lock-in, and thus prefer to keep their sovereignty (Moravcsik)

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

20. Exams

21. Median Mean

22. Median Mean

23. Thank youWE ARE GLOBAL GEORGETOWN!