Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040...
-
Upload
lauren-rogers -
Category
Documents
-
view
213 -
download
0
Transcript of Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040...
![Page 1: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises
ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012
![Page 2: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Compare:
“It is difficult to restrain myself from doing something to stop this attempt to exterminate a race, but I realize I am here as an Ambassador and must abide by the principles of non-interference with the internal affairs of another country.”
Henry Morgenthau, US ambassador to Turkey, to the US secretary of state, August 11, 1915
![Page 3: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Two struggles for human rights movement
• First, create new language to articulate concerns of individuals in light of state power
• Second, for this language to make a difference
![Page 4: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Looks good on the first front…
• human rights language has replaced other languages of social change: modernization theory; dependency theory; Marxism
• human rights revolution: activists no longer confined to vigils – sit at able
![Page 5: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
![Page 6: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
![Page 7: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Some of the Bigger Ones
• Amnesty International• Human Rights Watch• International Commission of Jurists • International Federation of Human Rights • International Committee of the Red Cross• Human Rights First • Lawyers Without Borders• Doctors Without Borders • Physicians for Human Rights
![Page 8: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
A Complicated World
• NGO’s• INGO’s – International NGO• IGO’s – Intergovernmental Organizations• QUANGOs – quasi-NGO’s • DONGOs – donor-organized NGO’s• AGO’s – anti governmental • GRINGO’s – government-regulated • BINGO – business and industry NGO’s• DODONGO’s – donor-dominated
![Page 9: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
![Page 10: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Alas… not so good on the second…
![Page 11: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
CIRI Human Rights Data Project
(Cingranelli/Richards)
![Page 12: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Diffusion of human rights norms• networks among domestic/
transnational actors
• put norm-violating states on international agenda; remind liberal states of their identity as preservers of human rights (“naming/ shaming”)
• empower and legitimate claims of domestic opposition against norm-violating governments
![Page 13: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
And: Spiral effect…
![Page 14: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
How treaties influence domestic politics
• Change the national policy agenda
• Enhance possibility of litigation
• Mobilize groups (influence values; increase chance of success)
![Page 15: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Change the national policy agenda
• Japan: women’s equal employment
• Signed CEDAW, 1980 -- reforms were driven by desire to make a deadline
• Litigation and amendment in the 1990s improvements
![Page 16: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
number of Supreme Court
cases
1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004
Year
Torture litigation in Israel
Cases Filed Cases Decided
1991:Israel ratifies
CAT
1999:Landmark
torture ruling
![Page 17: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Helsinki Principles: I. Sovereign equality, respect for rights inherent in sovereignty II. Refraining from the threat or use of force III. Inviolability of frontiersIV. Territorial integrity of States V. Peaceful settlement of disputes VI. Non-intervention in internal affairs VII. Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, e.g.
freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief VIII. Equal rights and self-determination of peoples IX. Co-operation among States X. Fulfillment in good faith of obligations under international law
![Page 18: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
1975 Helsinki Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
• John Lewis Gaddis, in "The Cold War: A New History" (2005): “Leonid Brezhnev had looked forward (….) to the publicity he would gain... when the Soviet public learned of the final settlement of the postwar boundaries for which they had sacrificed so much... [Instead, the Helsinki Accords] gradually became a manifesto of the dissident and liberal movement... [T]he people who lived under these systems — at least the more courageous — could claim official permission to say what they thought."
![Page 19: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Human rights norms contributing to transformation of domestic practice
• Dissidents responded by creating social movements to challenge repressive state practices
• Polish and Czechoslovak government responded by denying they were violators
• tacitly granted more pol. space to groups identified with Helsinki norms
![Page 20: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
![Page 21: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Berlin Wall
![Page 22: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
![Page 23: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
![Page 24: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
November 9, 1989
![Page 25: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
![Page 26: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
![Page 27: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
![Page 28: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
![Page 29: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
Statistical Skepticism
• Large-scale analyses of causes of oppressions not done before 90s
• Many governments sign on to norms, few implement them -- especially those governments most likely to abuse citizens
• Suggest human rights laws/ organizations have only limited effects -- efforts at “naming and shaming” do not appear to work much better
![Page 30: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/30.jpg)
Convention Against Torture Ratifications and the Torture Scale
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Year
Tortu
re S
cale
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
% C
ount
ries
Ratif
ied
CAT
torture % Ratified CAT
![Page 31: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/31.jpg)
Hafner-Burton/Tsutsui:
• “No matter how we measure repression or personal integrity rights, repressive states that allow murder, torture, kidnapping, and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of people just as commonly belong to the CCPR and the CAT outlawing these behaviors as governments that protect human rights reasonably well” (p 410f).
![Page 32: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/32.jpg)
• Ratifying treaty can relieve pressure for change imposed by international actors, who may rely more heavily on positions than effects
• reduction in pressure may lead country that ratifies to improve its practice less than it otherwise might
![Page 33: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/33.jpg)
Endogeneity of treaty negotiations
• Governments prone to make agreements that comport with activities they are willing to engage in anyway
• makes it hard to assess precisely what “influenced” government
![Page 34: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/34.jpg)
Why divergence between quantitative and qualitative
approaches? • Different approaches make people notice different facets of
reality
• both needed: quantitative studies need to be supplemented by country narratives to be sure they are on the right track and have explanatory power
• qualitative studies need to be supplemented by quantitative studies to get a better sense of what factors “really” were causally efficacious
![Page 35: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/35.jpg)
Good News from Beth Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights (2009)
• Human rights treaty commitments make difference in countries that are undergoing democratic reforms anyway
• If so, then especially many Latin-American countries and Eastern-European countries will really have been helped substantially in this way
![Page 36: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
Good News from Beth Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights
(2009) • Concluding the book: “Change has been gradual but encouragingly cumulative. As MLK jr. said: ‘The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.’ International human rights treaties have helped to nudge the human race in the right direction.” (p 380)
• Picture that emerges here is that respect for human rights is driven largely by large-scale social and political processes (democracy, peace) – these are historical macro-phenomena not easily affected by policy-makers
![Page 37: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/37.jpg)
But:
• This leaves warning from Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui – that human rights treaties work only where there is some domestic resonance already
• But that also means they do not work to change the behavior of the worst offenders
![Page 38: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/38.jpg)
Case Study in the Mechanics of Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar Europe
• European Human Rights Regime
![Page 39: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/39.jpg)
Why would any government, democratic or dictatorial,
favor establishing an independent international authority, the sole purpose
of which is to constrain domestic sovereignty?
![Page 40: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/40.jpg)
Council of Europe: Founding Members/Later Members
![Page 41: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/41.jpg)
![Page 42: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/42.jpg)
Confusing: same flag for EU
![Page 43: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/43.jpg)
Human Rights• European Convention on Human
Rights (1950)
• Regionally binding treaty
• Additional protocols signed by everybody eliminating the death penalty
• European Court of Human Rights: allows for individual complaints – can now appeal directly to court
![Page 44: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/44.jpg)
Regional Human Rights Treaties
• European
• Inter-American
• African
• South-East Asian
![Page 45: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/45.jpg)
European Court of Human rights • Members have incorporated
Convention into their own national legal orders
• impact of case law is enormous
• National judges, elected officials, and administrators under pressure to make Convention rights effective within national system
![Page 46: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/46.jpg)
Major provider of international public law
• Convention on Cybercrime • Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism• Conventions against Corruption and Organized Crime• Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human
Beings • Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine
![Page 47: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/47.jpg)
• for the sake of restricting future governmental discretion and for the sake of reducing domestic political uncertainty
• For which governments would this be of interest? -- primarily for governments that worry about future of respect for human rights/democracy
![Page 48: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/48.jpg)
• supported by the finding that new democracies all supported binding human rights commitments: Austria, France, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Germany (plus Belgium)
• Opposing enforcement: Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, UK, Luxembourg
![Page 49: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/49.jpg)
Why?
• countries where democracy was not firmly established found it advantageous to “lock themselves in”
• established democracies were worried about preserving political idiosyncracies
![Page 50: Excursion: A Brief Glance at the Political Reality of Human Rights Treatises ER 11, Gov E-1040 Spring 2012.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062716/56649dbf5503460f94ab3e10/html5/thumbnails/50.jpg)
Same phenomenon re. ICCPR
• in early 50s, most stable modern democracies (e.g., US and UK) allied with authoritarian states like the Soviet Union, China, South Africa, and Iran, in opposition to the inclusion of compulsory, enforceable commitments
• Alliance in favor included recently established democracies in continental Europe, Latin America, and Asia.