Punishment and Politicization in the International Human Rights Regime

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
ROCHELLE TERMAN ◽  
JOSHUA BYUN
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Periodic Review ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Novel Theory ◽  
International Human ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Sensitive Issues ◽  
The Relationship

Conventional wisdom treats politicization in the international human rights regime as invariant: for any given violation, states condemn adversaries while coddling friends. However, we find that politicization patterns vary markedly across human rights issues. Some norms are more politicized than others, and states are more likely to punish geopolitical partners on certain violations. We offer a novel theory of politicized enforcement wherein states punish human rights violations discriminatively based on their perceived “sensitivity” for the target state. Using data from the UN Universal Periodic Review, an elaborate human rights mechanism, we show that states tend to criticize their adversaries on sensitive issues that undermine the target regime’s power and legitimacy while addressing safer topics with friends. By uncovering a strategic logic of human rights enforcement, this research contributes new theoretical insights on the relationship between norms and power politics in global governance.

A House Divided: Norm Fragmentation in the International Human Rights Regime

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rochelle Terman ◽  
Zoltán I Búzás
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Periodic Review ◽  
Clustering Methods ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Data Driven Approach ◽  
International Human ◽  
Using Data ◽  
And Migration

Abstract Although human rights are widely endorsed in the abstract, significant variation exists in the degree to which different states endorse different rights. To what extent is the international human rights community divided? This research note examines fragmentation in the international human rights regime using an inductive, data-driven approach. We trace states’ normative positions as they are expressed in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a UN mechanism where states “peer review” one another's human rights practices. We analyze over 56,000 recommendations from the first two cycles of the UPR using data collected from the non-profit organization UPR Info. Employing unsupervised scaling and clustering methods, we find four interstate clusters or factions emerging from this process: Civil Libertarians, Developmentalists, Institutionalists, and Egalitarians. Our results indicate that the international human rights regime reflects less a singular community than a set of communities, each constituted by a distinct configuration of normative positions. They also reveal new insights about specific norms: while women's rights and children's rights are broadly endorsed, norms related to sexuality and migration are more contentious and partisan. While our findings are descriptive, they lay the foundation for new causal questions of interest to scholars of human rights and international norms.

Citizenship and Human Rights

2017 ◽  
pp. 246-267
Author(s):  
David Owen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Human Right ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
International Human ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship of citizenship and human rights has become a central issue for contemporary politics. This chapter begins with a brief overview of theories of human rights, before addressing two pivotal topics for this relationship: a human right to citizenship (as membership of a state) and a human right to democracy. It then turns to consider the practical salience of the international human rights regime for citizenship and human rights, before concluding with a discussion of the relationship of human rights as cosmopolitan norms to the principle of the self-determination of peoples.

scholarly journals Are Rights Out of Time? International Human Rights Law, Temporality, and Radical Social Change

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 817-838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn McNeilly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The Future ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Relationship

Human rights were a defining discourse of the 20th century. The opening decades of the twenty-first, however, have witnessed increasing claims that the time of this discourse as an emancipatory tool is up. Focusing on international human rights law, I offer a response to these claims. Drawing from Elizabeth Grosz, Drucilla Cornell and Judith Butler, I propose that a productive future for this area of law in facilitating radical social change can be envisaged by considering more closely the relationship between human rights and temporality and by thinking through a conception of rights which is untimely. This involves abandoning commitment to linearity, progression and predictability in understanding international human rights law and its development and viewing such as based on a conception of the future that is unknown and uncontrollable, that does not progressively follow from the present, and that is open to embrace of the new.

Conclusion: Human Rights Treaties (Sometimes) Protect Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 193-224
Author(s):  
Courtenay R. Conrad ◽  
Emily Hencken Ritter
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Domestic Institutions ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
International Human

This chapter highlights the conclusions and contributions of theresearch: obligation to international law can constrain leaders from violating human rights-and encourage potential dissidents to revolt against their governments. The argument that human rights treaties "work" is contrary to the explanations of a wide variety of scholars who maintain that the international human rights regime has been an abject failure. Although scholars have found evidence that domestic institutions can lead to decreased repression, there has been little support for the argument that international institutions do so.In contrast, this book finds that-if international law creates even the smallest shift in assumptions over domestic consequences for repressive authorities-these effects can yield a substantively meaningful reduction in rights violations when leaders have significant stakes in domestic conflicts.

Title to Territory and JurisdictionThree and a Half Models

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-181
Author(s):  
Lea Raible
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Power ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The very term ‘extraterritoriality’ implies that territory is significant. So far, however, my argument focuses on jurisdiction rather than territory. This chapter adds clarifications in this area. It examines the relationship of jurisdiction in international human rights law, whether understood as political power or not, and title to territory in international law. To this end, I start by looking at what international law has to say about jurisdiction as understood in international human rights law, and territory, respectively. The conclusion of the survey is that the two concepts serve different normative purposes, are underpinned by different values, and that they are thus not the same. Accordingly, an account of their relationship should be approached with conceptual care.

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