Human Rights Exam 2

Convention Against Torture and Dictators:

"...from the point of view of Chile's international position, our willingness to become a party to the Convention reflects Chile's real decision to recognize the practice of fundamental human rights. With it, it will be possible to dispel the accusations of which our country is systematically the object in international human rights forums." - Pinochet's submission for ratification to the legislative Junta (1987)

Source of International Law

*1.) Customary International Law*: * 2.) Treaty-based law:* *3.) General Common Principles;*

What is an International Regime?

- "set of principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures accepted by states (and other international actors) as binding within an issue area" (Donnelly 79)

United Nations Office/Bodies:

- *Human Rights Council*: - High Commissioner for Human Rights*: - *Human Rights Treaty Bodies*: - *Special Advisors on the Prevention of Genocide and Responsibility to Protect*: Others: - Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, Cultural) of the General Assembly - Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) - Secretary-General - Security Council - Commission on the Status of Women - United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Neumayer, Eric. 2005. "Do International Human Rights Treaties Improve Respect for Human Rights?" Journal of Conflict Resolution 49(6): 925-953.

- *The findings suggest that rarely does treaty ratification have unconditional effects on human rights. Instead, improvement in human rightsis typically more likely the more democratic the country or the more international nongovernmental organizations its citizens participate in.* - *Conversely, in very autocratic regimes with weak civil society, ratification can be expected to have no effect and is sometimes even associated with more rights violation.* - QUESTION: Do international human rights treaties make a difference in reality? Does their ratification lead to improved respect for human rights in the country ratifying the treaty's provisions? This is the question examined in this article. - Synopsis of Findings: we find that a beneficial effect ofratification of human rightstreatiesistypically conditional on the extent of democracy and the strength of civilsociety groups as measured by participation in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with international linkages. In the absence of democracy and a strong civil society, treaty ratification has no effect and is possibly even associated with more human rights violations. Research Design: - Human rights performance is not easily measurable. We will distinguish between civil rights and personal integrity right - Civil rights typically refer to such rights as the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly and association, and the freedom of religious expression. Personal integrity rights typically refer to such rights as freedom from unlawful and political imprisonment, freedom from torture, freedom from unlawful physical or other harm, freedom from cruel and inhumane treatment, and the right to a fair trial. - As our measure of personal integrity rights, we use data from the two Purdue Political Terror Scales (PTS). One of the two PTS is based on a codification of country information from Amnesty International's annual human rightsreportsto a scale from 1 (best) to 5 (worst). Analogously, the other scale is based on information from the U.S. Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. - To measure civil rights, we employ the civil liberties index published by Freedom House (2004), which is available from 1972 onwards. Results: - *Do international human rights treaties improve respect for human rights? Our quantitative analysissuggeststhat the answer is more complex than a simple yes or no. On one hand, in the absence of civil society and/or in pure autocracies, human rights treaty ratification often makes no difference and can even make things worse* - we also find evidence that ratification is more beneficial the stronger a country's civil society, that is, themore its citizens participate in international NGOs. This provides evidence in favor of liberal theories and the theory of transnational human rights advocacy networks. - We found only few cases in which treaty ratification has unconditional beneficial effects on human rights.In most cases,for treaty ratification to work, there must be conditions for domestic groups, parties, and individuals and for civil society to persuade, convince, and perhaps pressure governments into translating the formal promise of better human rights protection into actual reality - Even if we had not found any statistically significant conditional or unconditional effect of treaty ratification, this would not necessarily imply that these treaties are ineffective. It could be that one fails to find such effects due to the manifold statistical problems described above. It could be that it takes a longer period of time for these effects to leave statistically significant traces in the data. - Even if there are no significant direct effects, it could be that there are indirect effects on all countries via, for example, providing a common human rights language, reinforcing the universality of human rights,signaling the consensus of the international community, creating stigma for offenders, providing support to human rights campaigners, and the like - . Yet, despite these difficulties, we believe to have demonstrated quantitatively and rigorously that ratification of human rights treaties often does improve respect for human rights, conditional on the extent of democracy and the strength of civil society.

Convention Against Torture: Chile

- 1973: Pinochet overthrows Allende - Widespread repression against opposition - 1987: opened political parties - September 1988: Ratifies CAT - October 1988: Pinochet loses plebiscite - Transition to democracy, independent judiciary - use of CAT in domestic trials ♣ Chile political terror scale improves over time from 1988 - present ♣ Covention against torture strengthened when courts are expanded and gain important influence ♣ Civil society & International Law o Unlikely to see autocracies ratify a treaty and see vast inprovements in human rights

IR Approach: Realism

- Anarchic world - Power - What the powerful states want to do - No Human rights under international law - Security

European Court of Human Rights:

- Article 19 of ECHR sets up the Commission and Court - Right of individual petition - Last resort State Responsibility: Euripean Conventon n Human Rights - Mainly civil and political Article 19: of ECHR sets up commision and Court - Right of the indiviaul peition - Last resort court - INterstate petition

European Convention on Human Rights:

- Article 2: Right to life (originally permitted death penalty)* - Article 3: Prohibition of torture, inhumane or degrading punishment* - Article 4: Prohibition of slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labor* - Article 5: Right to liberty and Security of person - Article 6: Right to fair and public hearing - Article 8: Right to privacy and family life - Article 9: Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion - Article 10: Freedom of expression - Article 11: Freedom of peaceful assembly - Article 12: Freedom to marry and have family - Article 14: Non-discrimination "on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status."

Francis, David. 2015 "Why the United States and Nigeria will #BringBackOurGirls" Foreign Policy April 14, 2015

- Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group terrorizing northeast Nigeria, is responsible for the kidnappings of up to 2,000 women and girls since the start of 2014, - But a year later, despite the global condemnation of Boko Haram's heinousness, only a handful of the girls have been found. And there's a very real possibility that no one will ever hear from the 219 who remain missing. - The kidnapping of the students, aged 16 to 18, and the failure to find them show how difficult it can be to translate social media attention to actual results on the ground. - The failure to locate the missing students also shows how hard it is for the United States to operate in a country like Nigeria, where corruption within the political establishment and the military is rampant and can undermine joint efforts for cooperation against terrorist organizations. - Jonathan was defeated in Nigeria's presidential election late last month in part because his challenger, former military strongman Muhammadu Buhari, successfully pinned blame on him for the schoolgirls' disappearance. - The primary obstacle to locating the girls is the part of the world where their abductions happened. Boko Haram has free rein over lawless parts of northern Nigeria, as well as lands across its border with Chad and Niger. Early reports indicated that many of the girls were sold off as wives to Boko Haram members — not an uncommon practice in that part of the world. Some have reportedly been forced to participate in Boko Haram attacks. - But efforts to find them were immediately complicated by numerous abuses by the Nigerian military in the search for the girls. Human Rights Watch has documented numerous instances of indiscriminate killings and other atrocities by Nigerian soldiers. - As reports of human rights abuses emerged, the United States withheld intelligence that might have been helpful to find the girls but was shelved out of fear it would be used to commit further atrocities. - Now, without Western support, the Nigerian military has surrendered control of some 20 percent of the country to Boko Haram - Without prodding from the American public or a quick rebuilding of trust between President Barack Obama and Buhari, experts say, the White House is unlikely to re-engage in a campaign that has been marred by atrocities and shows little prospect of success. - As for the girls' fate: At this point, it's clear they needed far more than a hashtag campaign to be brought back.

Why is it difficult to measure compliance?

- Continuum - Data Avalaibility • What would you wanna look for to determine compliance o Measures of political terror scale How to measure: Case by case study State capacity Cutlre Reservations

UNHRC in Action: Syria:

- Country Mandates - Resolutions

Evaluations of Council:

- Country-specific mandates - targets? - Membership criteria - competitiveness? - 2010-2011 members include: China, Bahrain, Cuba, Russia, Saudi Arabia - UPR No role for experts 4-year cycle 3-hours

IR Approach: Liberalism (Domestic Politics)

- Democracies work for human rights - Spread democracy Pacta Sunt Servanda - (latin meaning: agreements must be kept) - States will follow law because it is right

Why do states comply (or not)?

- Domestic law analogy - Reasons for compliance - Reasons for non-compliance ♣ Reasons for non compliance • Lack of enforcement • Low costs • Disagree ♣ Domestinc politics theory of treaty compliance • International vs. domesteic enforcement • Executive powers and national agendas • Courts and leveraging litigation • Empowering mobilization

Essentials 3.5

- Female circumcision and footbinding were both practices with long-lasting impact on women's health and activity level, practices we would now call violence against women. - Both are deeply embdeed cultural practices, involving relgious rituals and rights of passage, and a pre-req for marriage - Socially mandated, not legally enforce - Bind feet appealing to men, and confined women to the home - After concerned campaigns against both pracrices, foot binding was eradicated in China in early 20th century, while female circumsion contineus to be practices THE CAMPAGIN AGAINST FOOTBINDING 1874 - 1911 - Footbinding is in someways analgous to the western practice of corsetting, but much more painful - girls have there feet bound between 4 and 8 to prevent growth - After years of intense pain, the bones break, and flesh falls to make narrow feet - Human rights abuse, few forms of modren torture leave permanent deformation - Footbinding prepared a girl physically and psychologically for her future role as a wife and dependent family memebr - A movment to abolish was started in the late 19th century from foreigners in China's treaty porters - A decree banning came about in 1911 - This came before the 1919-1920 May Fourth Movment which is often seen as a peak period of political and social innovation - Changes in footbinding preceeded rather than followed the main wave of cultural and political reform - Goals of a national reform movment emergingin in the 1890's included an edn to footbinding and improve status of women Three groups were involved in the initial campaigns against footbinding: 1.) Western Missionaries who focused on Chinese Christians 2.) Westerners who led a campagin focused on non-christian eleites 3.) Chinnese reformers who focused their campaign on non-christtian chinese elites - Each of the three actors took a characterstic approach to the issue, missionary was most agressive and morlaistic - Missionaries offered scholarships to schools to girls w unbound feet, and they offered ease of marriage - In contrast ot the missionaries, Mrs. Littles Natural foot society focused on influencing powerful officails and non-christian chinese women of wealth and fashion. - Her stratagey was to work witht he upper class and footbinding alone rather than mix views on the practice with religion - Although most of the intiial support came fro foreigners, by 1908 the Natural Foot Society was operating entirely under the leadership of Chinese women, who continued to campapaing with vigor - A letter from 1907 that documents the societies work shows that they had h 2,000 present people, and 162 meetings in 33 ciities - Only 16 years passed between the formation of the organizaiton and the 1911 ban - Footbinding had been around for 1000's of years, but ended in a decade, just as slavery did, because of a concerted moral and political campaign against it. - The most thorough antifootbinding camaign is part of the contact with the west. - Not until efforts were pecieved to be natiaonalistic chinnese policies did the majority of chinnese expose them, the foreign and christiian roots of the campgain had to be renounced for vicotry to be achieved, yet, Western women and ideals laid the foundation for the practices eradication - Foreign and international acrots alone rarley succeed in changing an embedded cultural practice, Chinnese reformers at the head of the movmet used argumens that resonated better with the discourse of the time in China than did those used by missionaries - To eradicate a traditional practice intellectuals appealed to ancient traditions - The connection that chinnese reformers made beetween footbinding and weakness and between indiviual weakness and the collective weakness of the country appears to have been a pwerful rehtorical weapon against binding. The Campaign Against Female Circumcision in Kenya, 1923 - 1931 - The term female circumsuion has refered to a variety of operations involving damage to female sexual or reproductive organs - Almost always involve removing the clitoris or the labia minora, the sewing of the vulva - unlike male circumscion which leaves neither pain nor health problems, female carries short term risks of infection, painful urination, menstrua diffcult, scaring, and abscesses -Widley practiced in Kenya among the kikuyu and other cultural groups - Concered efforts to stop the proactice began in the 1920s when protestnat missionaires led by the Church of Scotland Missionary (CSM) prohibited the operation among their converts and campaignned against it - There is not opposition internal amongst the kikuyu until the missionaries arrived - To stop this, missionariry schools refused to admist circumscised girls, and members would be suspended from church, they also said it was anti church - This campaign took place in the context of increaing African oppositon to British COlonial practices The Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) repersented the tribes nationalism, and the debate of the practice exacerbated an internal political split between the militant KCA and the older leadership repersented by Christian missionaries - The KCA embraced femal circumcsision. -The campaign aganst FC became a symbol for colonial attempts to impose outside values and rules upon the population - KCA was Kikuyu nationalsm, and since many protestant leaders opposed the KCA, they opposed FC - In late 1929 the controversey became more heated, the pro FC forces circulated a satirical song that ridiculued the church and praised Kenayatta who was the general secretary of the KCA - The government and chruch flogged the singers and sent them to dententon camps as well as banning public meetings - Kenyatta and his team made the debate les about health and relgion to one of nationalism, land, and the integrity of local cutlrue - One of the political reseults of the controversy was to delgeitmize the Kikuyu leaders associated with teh missions and increase the influence and memebrship of the KCA - The anticrciumsicon campaign becoame assocaited with colonialsim and interference and th epractice of female circumsiion with indepdnee nationalism and tradition - HOW DOES THIS DIFFER FROM FOOTBINDING One of the most important differences has to do w the advocacy campaign - Nationalism in china was different from nationalism in colonial Kenya, christian nationalism invovled a critique of tradition as a source of weakness and embrace modernity - ANtifoodtibind when stripped of its missionary orgins, articulated well with the desire to discard remants of a fedual past to take control of the future - Kenyan nationalism appealed to tradiaition as a means of streghtneing unity and defeating the colonial other. - During the chineese campaign a symbol of pride became a symbol of the past, in Keny the oppoosite occured, the missionary became a force against Kenyana nationalism (cutoff in pic so take a look again) - In kenya, unlike China, the anti campgain never acquired domestic sponsors and the missionary was deeply associated with colonila rule and they could not be sperated - The footbinding campaign because of Mrs. Little Natural Foot Society sperated the debate from relgion, and it did not demand a cultural change, whre in Kenay it was a total cultural transofmration, without the possibility of slective change A STRONG SUMMARY OF THE WHOLE IS THE LAST PARAGRAPH IN THE CHAPTER, READ AGAIN BEFORE EXAM

Challenges Facing the ACtHPR:

- Funding & staff shortage - Awareness - Limited jurisdiction - 30 of 54 AU countries have ratified - Only 8 accep

Questions about Treaties:

- Given patterns of commitment and compliance, what (if anything) is the value of human rights treaties? -Is international law law?

Empirical Challenges of CEDAW:

- How do you measure these rights? - Counterfactual: would rights have improved in the absence of the treaty?

What does the UNHRC do?

- How is the UNHRC different from the UNCHR? - What were some major debates surrounding the formation of the Council?

Simmons chapter 4:

- Human rights have been one of the most powerful normative concepts in the past half century - Championed by individual disgusted by oppression of which some governments have shown themselves capeable - Democracries have tended to be at the forefront of the process of ratficiation, while nondemocracies have constitently lagged behind - There is also evidence of stragtegic ratification in the form of social camfolague but really only during the cold war years, where news was under gov. control and in regions with dispersion of actual right practcies - Gov thought htey could avoid intenterantional critcisim - This chapter continues to develop arguments made in chapter 3, some governments ratify hr sincerely, fully intending to comply, while other ratify stratgically hoping for credit or relief form criticsim in the shrot run - We need a theory of how treaties matter in the polticis of both willing and resistant states - Treateies will have there most important infleucne through the effects they may have on political mobilization - *The central argument developed here is that ratifed treateis can infleunce agenda,s litigation, and mobilizaitonin ways that should be observable in govenrment policies post-ratificaiton. Treaties change politics in particular, the domestic politics of the ratifying country. While their enforcement internationally tends to create colelctive action problems htat state actors have few incentivies to overcome, the consequences locally can be profound. - Treaties influence the national policy agenda, they infleucne legal decisons, and the propensity of groups to mobilize, these mechanisms aggregate lead us to expect at least some postivie impact of making a HR treaty DRIVING QUESTION: What if anything drives complaince in such an effete legal enviorment? 1. The Common Wisdom - The most common answer is simply state power and state intersts - Treaties reflect the power and interests of states taht take part in there negoation and add little to an understanding of why governments behave the way they do post ratificiaton - Governments will not onor international HR treaties when it is not in their interest to do so = Governments have no incentive under these conditons to hand rights to thier political or cultural opponents, and in the absence of an international will to enforce these rights, the domestic balance of power - with what ever regime of repression that implies will hodl sway. *The key insight is this: Treaties have little purchase over govenrment behavior because thye are not likely to be meaningfuly enforced, high compliance rates should not be mistaken for treaty effectivness, they just reflect commitment, not effectivnes - "most hman rights practices are explained by Coercion or concidnece of interests" 2.) Self-Enforcing Agreements Why do states use this kind of instrment to support thier intentional cooperation and what difference - if any - does it make to outcomes we might care about? 1.) Traties support higher levels of intenational cooperation by enhancing states ability to make credible commitments to one another, even if they have incentives to misrperesnt their true intentions. - No rational governmetn would pay a high down payment on a cooperative enterpsie if it did not intend to abide by the agreement How do treaties assist govenremtns in making credible comitments to behave or refrain from behaviing in a particular way? - In contrast to other forms of intenational agreemtns, a treaty frafitificion involves the assent of a legisltavie or at least a cbaninetn level body - The preceodures requing varying levels of government effort to secure domestic support for the agreementn in question - The more hawkish the leg. the greater the political resitance to the govenmet can expect to receive from ratificaiton and the less liley such a sgovnemtn would be to pay these ex ante ratificaiton costs - Ratification is the only clear ex ante cost assocaited with trat making - *The notion that treaties are embedded in the broader international legal system informs a good deal of legal thinking on the compliacne question. The link implies that a country can develp a good reputation for being law abidigin that has value and meaning across issue areas. - Treaty violation is generally detred by goverments engaged in an expensive ffort to rate a favorable opinion.* HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES: A COUNTINUING THEORETICAL PUZZLE - Skeptics are right that peer enforcemnt is likely to be weak, Foreign governments simply do not have the incentives to expend political, military, and economic resources systematically to enforce HR treaties around the globe. - Governmetns will have weka incentives to enforce intenaitonal HR agreemtns involving trade partneers and allies - We can begin with the opening assumption of contracting for mutual gain. In the human rights area a country can generally relaize its desired level of rights without the cooperation of any other state, in fact it is probably optimal for a country to fomrulate thier rights unilaterally - ALso HR tegimes do not involve recpirpiocal compliance, no governmen is likley to alter its own rights practices to reciprocate for abuse elesewhere WHAT IS THE INSTRUMENTAL VALUE OF REPUTATION? "What ever compliacne costs have led to noncompliacnce in one issue are are correlated with nonclimpliance in another issue area, there is no good reason for other countries to draw a reptuational interference for other issue areas. There is no reason to suspect that a country that violates a HR agreement will break out of an arms control treaty - joint gaiins and recpiproiccyt are fairly beside the point for itnerstate interactions in the HR areas, reputation works best, very weakly in this area as well, for these reaosns signaling theories are interesting only because they allow actors to relaize joint gains that they cnnot reach because of risk of defection, but they are orthogonal to the analysis. - International HR agreemts do not produce joint gains A DOMESTIC POLITICS THEORY OF TREATY COMPLIANCE - Like other formal intsittiions, treaties are causally meaningufl to the extent that they empower indiivdual groups, or part of the stae with different rights preferences that were not empowered to the same extent in the absence of the treaties. - International HR treaties have singularly unsual property: they are negotatied internationally but chreate stakeholders almost excusivley domestic. -I suggest that three mechanisms through which treaties can infleunce domest politics in very postive ways 1.) Executive powers: treaties and Agenda-Setting Influences - Not only are concessions made toother countries, but as the following demonstrates, prioerties are shaped by intentiaonl bodies and non state actors with an interest in the substanece of particlar HR agreemtnts - Treaty ratification provides a unique opportunity for the executive branch of government to place what otherwise might have been a legislative item on the national policy agenda - The abilty to impact a national agenda is highly conditoonal, it operates on the margins within some states to embrace rights, this mechanism *is avalible only within sincerse ratifies.* It also claims that it can change agendas, but it does not deal with the problems of implmentation or enforcment. 2.) Courts: The Leverage of Litiigation - Increasingly individuals and groups who use the courts and explict traty commitments to levargage their rights claims are holding governments accountable for their HR beavhir - Treaties make litigation possble becasue they are domestically enforceable legal obligations - Litigation in national courts is one of the best stratagies avaliable for greating homegrown pro-rights jurispdrudence FIJI CEDAW EXAMPLE PAGE 132 IICCPR 133 Example Russia 3.) Group Demands: Rights and Mobilization - I first consider the social mobilzation process istself, and ask what conditons can citizens be expected to bomize to claim a set of HR from thier leaders 2.) I argue that intenrational treaties might influence the probability of mobilization WHY MOBILIZE? - The willingness to mobilize or formulate a set of demands and to organize press for them can be thoguht of in terms of an individuals expected utility or the value of the outome scaled by the likelihood that it can be realied - 1 reason people orgnize for social change is that something is seriously wrong or unjust - The point is not that grievances are manfuactured de novo by such entrepreneurs but that they are able to tap into exisisting discontent, raising the chances of mobilization even in the absence of an abrupt structural upheaval. - The most significatn variable in explaining mobilization is whether or not demainding a right will turn out to eb suceessful The probability is infouenced by shifts in the power and influence of the social movment itself Resource mobilizaiton theory empahsized that movment sucess is infleunced by resources that are tangible as well as intaginble - IN short: the formation and sucess of social and political movments are often linked to political legal organizaitonal and socail changes that reduce the costs of mobilization and improve the likelhiod of sucess - International HR treaties can prove to be an important resouce in this regard, such treaties are ptoentially important reosuces in doemstic mobilizion because they raise the expected value of moblizing to make a righs demand - In the politics of mobilization, the law can play an important role, aside form the benefits and risks associated with lititigation, legal mobilization in the broader sense of appealing to legal rights promotes movments organization and claim making The avalibility of international treaty law can thus increase agents expected value of social and political mobilization in turn increasingpressre on governments to live up to thie rlegal obligations these, treaty effects are discussed inthe following sections TREATIES RIGHT DEMANDS AND THE VALUE OF SUCCEEDING - One of the most powerful treaty effects is the introduction of a new set of rights and a new understanding of right claimants into the local poltiical setting Treaties are externally negotiated agreements which are potentially a source of great infleunce in local poltiics - They often introduce ideas and conceptions that are foreign new or at least not well articulated - International HR argreemtns have the potential to infleucen doemstic politics becasue they suggest new ways for indiivduals to view their relationship with their govenrment and with each other - The ICCPR suggests that individuals have a clear sphree of freedom for participating in political life, the CERD suggests to racial minorites that thier right to particpate equally in social and poltial life and country, the CEDAW suggst tow oment that they are equal to men and they should view themselves in that light - The stratagey of using treaties to raise rights conciouness is observable in the activies of many groups and NGO's, who have often positioned themselves to educate people about thier righs contined in documents ther own govenrmetn ahve signed. - HR treaties in short may contain persuasive new information and ideas that can influence the values and beliefs of a public for whose benefit the agreement was ostensibly designed they can put local cultural or political practices in a more universalitstc persect, suggestinga right to which some might have not previously considered. - " I argue that moral/legal talk cannot be assumed tobe costless, for it risks changing the values, identities , and interests of potential beneficiaries Mobilization SUCCESS - I argue that ratified treaty can do 4 things to imporve mobilization 1. Precommtis the govenrment to be recpeitve, to demands 2. It may increase the size of the coalition 3. enhacnines the intangible resources avalible to the coalation 4. Expands the range of stratgies the coaltion may employ to secure the ralizaiton of there demands - Ratification is not just a costly signal intent, it is a prcess of domestic legialtion that some have shown raises the domestic salience of an international rule - This does not mean that a ratified treaty will be placed into domestic law unproblematically, it does mean howeer that indiviaul or groups with demands cosntiten witht he treaty are ore likley to encounter legistlature primed becaus they are precommiteed seriously to consider their demands - Rights demanders and their adivcoates work to expose incsonstience between precommitment and psot ratificaiton beahvior in countries around the world - The ratiication of a treaty ahs the potential to bring in braoder range of allies to join the core beneficiaitiers in demading rights implmentations - *Internationalists* are individuals or orgnizations that have some strong material interests in mainting good public relatiosn with the oustisde world - Internationlsits may support demands in the presence of a ratified treaty as an insuracne policy against the small probability that to renge could intrpduce political friciotn into thier extenrl relations in the wordl. - IN SHORT: ratified treaties provides but unimpmented treaties provide an opening for governmental opponents actors with legal experieces and actors with internaional intersst to ally with a nascent rights movment for tactical reasons - A ratified traty also provides intabgibel resources to a nascent rights coalation, - Treaties are also important in estabishing the legitmaticy of a claim beasue they represent global aggreemtns o best practcis and offer a failry clear statment on the nature of the demands by the group is making - Finally, traty ratification increases the range of stratgies a social movment can use to secure policy cahnge - They provide political openings for right demanders in politics where the coruts are unlikey to be accessible or reliable. "TO Summarize, the ratification of international treaties influences the chances of sucessful social mobilziaton,...On balnce ratified traties povide a political opening for right demanders that is more favorable than is the case in their absence, in combination with the aduvative function, ratifed treaties enahcne the movite as wella sthe means for gorup mobilizaiton by increasing the epxeted value. ALTERING THE NATIONAL AGENDA - If simply altering the national agneda is an important mechanisms by which legislative compliacne is oberved we might expect ratification to lead to legislative changes more foten in systme swhere legislatures exert few cosntrains on the executive. The result in the aggergate is likley to be amigouous becasue agenda changes are likley to be larger but fewer in president aystems and smaller but more frequient in in parlminterary stystme where the goverment already has a stronger legislative agenda settign role. LEVERAGING LITIGATION - Evidence that treaties have stronger effects in countries with more indepndent judical systmes would be consistent with the litigaiton mechansism. whre courts are free from polital interfefnce, treaties as legal instruments hsould have thier greates potential to influence policy. EMPOWERING POLITICAL MOBILIZATION - The potential for value reorinetnation is much greater in autocracy and a rafited treaty suggests that even my government agrees - formally and publicly - that i can legimatmey claim some indvidual rights vis a vis the state When this happens treaty effects show up as a stepping of the line represnting the value an individaul places on succeeding in a rights demand - I have argued that treaties can also infleucne the epected value of mobolizaiton by increasing the chances of suceess. - Where we are likley to see the most significant treaty effects, ast least with respect to civil and political righs is in the less steable transitonaling middle ground. COCLUSION (PROB READ AGAIN - SHORT) - To the question of why or under what conditons to govenment comply with thier intenational HR treaty commitments, has proposed that we look at domestic machnisms - I have adovcated a theoretical reoringetaiton of the compliacne problems premisd on the highly plausible stipulaton that nobody care more about HRtreaties than the citizens empowered by the treaty. - This chapte has made the case for the power of Domestic Mechanisms, new agendas, litigaiton, and especially social mobilziatoon, in harnessing the potental of treatres to infleucne rights praices. - At least in the case of civil and poltical rights, a treaty's greatest impact is liley to be found not in the stable extremes of demcoracy and autorcacy, but in the mas nations iwth institions in flux, where citizens potentially have both the motive and means to succeed in demadning their rights.

Sikkink, Kathyrn. 1993. "The Power of Principled Ideas: Human Rights Policies in the United States and Western Europe" in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, ed. J. Goldstein & R.O. Keohane. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

- Human rights ideas entered the US and Europe at the same time, after the Second World War - However, the way the countries respond to human rights differ - For Europe HR have focused primarily on regional systems, and for the US they focus on second and third world countries - Europe is likley to engage in quiet diplomacy through regional and international instititons, while the US will do that but will also engage in public manuevers - QUESTION: How does one explain the mergence of HR as an international issue and incoprorate it into bilateral foreign policy in both European countries and the UNited States? And why were human rights pursued in such different ways in these states? - One possible reason is the role of ideas "the emergence of human rights policy is not a simple victory of ideas over interests, it rather demonstrates the power of ideas to reshape understandings of natonal interest. The adoption of HR repersents not the neglect of NI but a fundemantal shift in the perception of long term NI. - HR emerged because policymakers and NGOs began to quesiton the idea that countrys HR practices are not legit topics of FP. *Beliefs and Human Rights* The debate over human rights forms part of a more fundemental debate over the changing nature of soverignty - A citizen claim agianst his or her governments violation of an global HR is a direct challenge to that states preogative under the doctrine of internal soverignty - Human Rights ideas also adress larger causal arguments about national interess - An important group of political entrepenuers argued that the best way to prmote stability was to defend HR and democracy *A typology of Human Rights Policies* - Two related but seperate issues from part of compreshensive HR policy 1.) willingness to surrender some sov. and submit internal HR practices to some sort of global review 2.) The second part involves a the projection of HR values internationally through an external HR policy, an external policy exisits when explicith HR legislation or exec. policy reglates aspects of FP making so that HR are incorparted into FP calculus - A country can be said to have an external HR policy when it has explcit mechanisms for intergrating HR concerns into FP and when those mechanisms have modified FP decisions in some cases - It is particularly interesting that the US is alone in having an external policy but not a multalteral poloicy, the explanation is that the wide disparties in the timing and sequencing of the adoption of external and miltalateral HR policies , for the US it was procedural *The TIming of Policy Selection* - ALthough HR concerns were not incoporated in the bilateral policies until the 1970's, HR first emerged as part of the discourse in US and European FP in the aftermath of WW2 - IN Europe the experience of the holocause and the war led to a change in ideas that had a direct impact on policy, In the US the initial postwar ideas about the connection between HR and world peace were superseded by the combined ideological forces of anticommunism, isolationsim, segregationsit sentiment. *International Precursours to HR Politices before WWII* HR were not considered approprotate for international scrutiny before WW! Period of 1941 - 1953 - A qualtiative and quantitive change occured in the treatment of HR issues in the period after WWII - NGO's aided by delegations of somaller countries and big alike lobbied for hR favorable which there is no parallel in history for, they were repsernting all different types o findustries - Essentially during this period NGOs made Innternational world aware of HR. Period 2: 1953 - 1973 - Another path-breaking development came when a few progressive European States moved twoard the adoption of external plciies - Then Greece had a coup, and 4 HRC countries filed a case against the military goverment for violation of the conventions HR provissions, the greece case broek ground because the new regional standards were being applied aginst a rights violating regime = The greek case demonstrates that Euorpean preference for multilateral and legal forms of action een in the implmentation of external HR policies -During this period, HR dropped out of the US foreign policy agenda, becuase during the Cold war the issue collapsed into a an issue about the communist policy. - BRICKER Amendment: protecting states rights against authorizing international organizaitons to supervise rights of citizens in the US, supported, but Eishenhower vetoed becasue he felt that it would take away his ability to carry out FP sucessfully. 1973 - 1984 - IN the seven years from 1973 - 1980 the US alterted its external policy by incorporating HR into FP calculus, - Just as the Greek case demonstrated the possibilities of external HR in europe US policies in Argentina shoed how the US incopprated HR in there FP - According to the state department, no HR sitatuion was of greater concenrn in the 70's than argentina, citiing its HR abuses - The US stopped many loan and aid packages from reaching the latino country - In december 1978, the Argentine govenrmet invivted the IACHR to condct investigation, and the HR sitation improved dramatically - This simple recounting leaves out the very substantial role of NGO who supplied US policy makers with the on the ground information at the time - A small number of European countries also developed more explicit external HR policies at the time as well Period 4: 1980 - 1992 - Within a year of taking office, Ragen and his team changed the HR policy, a leaked copy of the memo calling for change stated that they had shifted bc they become away of broad support for the policies and public - This allowed them to impose democracies on countries such as Nicraguqua *Explanation for US and European HR policies* - Though the literature on HR and US and Euroepan HR policies is copious, few attempts have been made to explain the reason for the emergence of US and Euroepan HR policies or for their similaroies and differences THE ADOPTION OF HR POLICIES - Realist: They would expect HR poliices to be used against traditional oppponens and not to be used agaisnt allies in a away that might undermine the stability of security arrangments - The realist would predict that the the west would use HR policy most forecfully agianst communist countries - The gree case deonstrates the conflcit between HR and stnadard ssecurity interperation - Realist analysis would not predict th fairly dramactic change in bilateral relations, between US and these traidional allies - HR helped create ideological climate in which western economic and security intersts could flourish But this argument cannot explain why human righs policy emerged when it did or the differences in timing and sequencing of multilateral and external policies Eat and WEst had difered over the priort of the various human rights since *The ROLE OF IDEAS* - Policy makers adopted new policies becasue their ideas had changed - Members of Congress did not adopt a HR policy in response to pressurses form their constitiences - Policy makers were aware that concerns for HR could be framed in ways that strongly appealed to the American Public - In the UNited States both the mulitlateral and external policy was blocked by a cluster of powerful ideas, - Then a series of issues converged to make political leaders question traditional ideas baout American politics and the place of US in the world - *In this sense, it was not the detetente or the superpower ideolgocial competutn that led to a HR policy, but the changing ideas about the need to transofrm the US role in the world* - For some in Congress, HR legislation had a dual prupose: to change practices of rperessive governemtns and to distance the US from those practices - HR policy emerged from both from the changing ideas of a congressional incumbents and form the convicitons of a new generation of policy makers who entered Congress after the 1974 elections. - The idea that led to a HR policy were already abroad in congress, before thier arrival, but eh 78 new democracts in the class of 1974 gave HR adoctates new leadership and the margina needed to pass legislation. *Implmentation of HR policie sin Europe and the US* - The Europeans tended to focus on HR in there regional countries, while in the US pressure was either the jacksonian democrats and the republic advocates agaisnt the SOviet Union, or in the third world specifically latinao targets - Moreoer in terms of nature, Europeans were more likley to use legal instruments, where as the US tneded to use bilateral channels - The differences stem from US hegemonic pwers which makes it more public than private *Continuity in US and Euroepan HR policies* *The continuation of HR polciies on both sides of the atlantc, is the result of both a consenses on the importancce of HR and the stickiness of institional provisons for implmenting it. - It was not until institional modificaiton of the 1970's with the creation of Buereau for HR and Humanitairian Affaris Subcommities that the delegation of HR issues to specific issues emerged - The infleuce of these organiaitons wielded was a dierect ersult on the reliability of their information and theresonseance of their arguments with the moral concerns of policy makers *Conclusion* (prob should read) - Two intersting quesitons: 1.) Why did the Cold war delay the adotppion of HR polices in the US but not Europe? 2)why were the policies implmented in different ways? FOR EUROPE: hr was to keep issues from happening again, and to making a unified Europe FOR US: HR was an external issue one easily subsumed by the Cold war , it was not until the detente in that the chill of the Cold war came togeter with the broader ideas of the 1960s and 1970s - In the 1970's HR came to resonate with ideas form the civil rights mvoment, with anti intervention growing out of the vietnam experience - The end of the cold war allowed HR policies to emerge, but that was necessary conditon, not sufficent conditon, the conditon that broguht them out was the holocaus and reinforced by Vietnman an d Chile expeicens and other repressive regimes -

How does international law compare to domestic law:

- International law is anarchic with no enformcent mechanism while doemstic law is enforceable and is consent based

Domestic Politics Theory of Treaty Compliance

- International vs domestic enforcement - Executive Powers & National Agendas - Courts & Leveraging Litigation - Empowering Mobilization

Questions about Compliance:

- Is compliance the same as effectiveness? Why or why not? - Can treaties be effective in the absence of compliance? - Can treaties be ineffective in the presence of compliance? - How would you measure compliance in economic & social rights areas?

Mantouvalou, Virginia. 2010. "Modern Slavery: The UK Response." Industrial Law Journal 39

- It is sometimes suggested that societal change—large-scale improvement of working conditions, for instance—cannot be triggered or advanced by human rights law and judicial decisions. Politics are the way to achieve progress. - it is said, even if they are receptive to such questions, a judicial decision only does justice to the individual applicant; it does not affect others found in a similar position or society as a whole. HOWEVER: *Courts and legislatures can work in tandem to establish and promote human rights principles, and with the support of groups of civil society, they can take positive steps in addressing gross injustices that affect the most vulnerable among us: abusive working conditions produced by a market economy* 1.) Modern Slavery and the Siladin Case Supranational governmental and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have over recent years paid attention to a phenomenon that they called 'modern slavery'. Millions of people in the world, they suggest, work in appalling conditions, and they are commodified and abused - Yet until recently, for many in the legal community in Europe, the problem of slavery, servitude and forced and compulsory labour appeared to be nothing but a reminder of a shameful past - The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) Siliadin v France that dealt with modern slavery in Europe attracted great attention by international organisations, NGOs, and in parliamentary debates worldwide In this landmark case, the Court for the first time in its history ruled that there was a breach of Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prohibits slavery, servitude and forced and compulsory labour. The judgment showed how Article 4 can be relevant in present-day Europe FACTS OF SILADIN: Ms Siliadin was a young migrant woman who was brought to France from Togo to work and be educated, but was in reality kept by her employers in appalling conditions. She worked seven days a week from 7.30 a.m. to 10.30 p.m., looked after three children, cleaned the house and cooked; she had no privacy; she slept in the children's room, on the floor; she cleaned her employer's office; she was never paid for her work; and her passport was withheld. And yet when she escaped from her employers and eventually reached French courts, she was faced with the fact that her treatment by them did not constitute a criminal offence in French law. She was only awarded some compensation for issues such as arrears for salary and holiday leave. - Before the Strasbourg Court, Ms Siliadin claimed that lack of criminal legislation banning slavery, servitude and forced and compulsory labour violated Article 4 of the Convention. - The Court recognised that there are modern forms of slavery, which have attracted the attention of several supranational organisations, such as the Council of Europe and the International Labour Organisation, to materials of which it made reference. - The Court held that her decision to remain with them in these conditions was not free. It was coerced. This situation amounted to forced and compulsory labour. - I The fact that France did not have effective criminal legislation banning slavery, servitude and forced and compulsory labour, so as to prosecute the employers of the vulnerable immigrant woman who was held in such conditions, constituted a violation of the country's human rights obligations, according to the unanimous decision of the Court. 2.) Modern Slavery in the UK and the New Offence - n an important study, Bridget Anderson and Ben Rogaly showed that forced labour practices do not only exist in work such as the sex industry, and identified several key sectors of the UK labour market where workers are particularly prone to extreme exploitation: construction, agriculture/horticulture, contract cleaning and residential care - Saladin brings the following question: does the UK have in place effective criminal legislation to comply with ECHR standards—the answer to which appeared to be negative - section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 is a welcome development - t criminalises deep injustice that can be the outcome of a deregulated labour market. It also brings the UK in line with the ECHR requirements. The key provisions of section 71 read as follows: ^ MADE IT CRIMINAL to Hold another person in slavery or servititude, no forced or compulsory labour without knowledge, detention military and community service are excluded fromt this The most significant difficulty in establishing this new offence lies in demonstrating the existence of coercion. Modern slaves are not held in chains—not literally. Are they actually --- Because of the lack of explicit physical force, it might be argued that there is nothing coerced in these situations faced by migrant workers or others kept in abusive conditions, if they are not locked up in the employer's home or business premises. Long history of how determining what the word coercion has been for the United States Supreme Court was difficult, read pg. 5 if important - The definition of coercion will not be uncomplicated in the UK context too, but courts will need to pay attention to the case law of the ECtHR, according to section 2 of the Human Rights Act 1998. - Yet here, when interpreting the new offence, they will need to pay attention to the determinations of these bodies, as the explanatory note of the legislation suggests. Importantly this point was also highlighted in Parliamentary debates - The Court held that in order to establish coercion, someone needs to show that there has been some physical or mental constraint, and an 'overriding of the person's will' (Siliadin, above, paragraph 117). - According to this, evidence of coercion or deception can include not only the use or threat of violence but also the threat to report the worker to the authorities, withholding payment or withholding the passport. Further indications can be the worker's isolation, poor living conditions when these are provided by the employer, very long working hours and dangerous working conditions imposed by the employer, with no safety equipment provided. The UK test, in other words, combines both physical and other forms of coercion, and also pays attention to the actual working conditions. - The section 71 offence, finally, provides for a maximum sentence of 14 years' imprisonment on conviction on indictment, or six months' imprisonment on summary conviction. 3.) A Cause for Celebration and Further Action - The introduction of the new offence was rightly celebrated by the organisations that campaigned for it - It is a significant victory for advocates of workers' rights and human rights, both at a symbolic and at a practical level. - At a symbolic level, it represents the most serious condemnation on the part of our legal civilisation of extremely abusive working conditions, which can be an outcome produced in a market economy and a world with borders. With human rights law as a tool, organisations and scholars urged and achieved the regulation of the informal and exploitative employment relationship - At a practical level, the new legislation opens up an avenue for redress to those that are victims of such behaviour, those that are most exposed to abusive behaviour and who are often made particularly vulnerable because of immigration controls and those who, as described by Joseph Carens, are 'hard to locate on the map of democracy - In addition, at a more general level, the new legislation reminds us all that human rights law sets out important moral, political and legal principles that provide not only individual remedies in case of violations in an ad hoc and unsystematic manner but also principles that guide legislative action. - lthough the new offence provides cause for celebration, it by no means signifies that combating such abusive working conditions in the UK will be an easy task. P - The problem is that for present-day slaves, it is not only their labour that is commodified but also their existence as a whole. Individuals who are kept in these conditions live in deep fear. Their work is their sole income. They do not want to seek help, because going to the authorities is likely to lead to their detention and deportation. They believe that remaining 'invisible' is the only option for them. The key concern for the authorities and the organisations that fight for the rights of these workers, therefore, is how to best give effect to these important undertakings and how to reach out to these individuals, so as to rescue them from abuse.

CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women)

- Non-ratifiers: US, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Tonga & Palau - Treaty Obligations:

Downfall of the UNCHR

- Politicized - how so? - Lost credibility - Membership Criticisms: - Highly pliticiszed, low degree of sovergnty - Membership criteria was law, countries with bad HR records were getting seats on the council (lyola) - Countries that were targeted, Israel, powerful coountries

What is Compliance:

- Procedural - "letter of the law" ♣ Strictly and literal interpretation of law ♣ But may not be invested in spirit of law - "Spirit of the Law" ♣ Ex. Countries nit picking torture • Claimed they were in compliance with letter of the law because they were complying within their definition of torture • But were not in compliance with spirit of the law ♣ Ex. Australia and asylum seekers on island that's not Australia • Operating within letter of the law yet not in the spirit of the law. • Technically haven't claimed asylum in Australia cause they never made it into Australia but Australian officials assisted with putting them on nearby island What does Compliance Look like?

Vreeland:

- Puzzle: Why do dictatorships that torture ratify the Convention Against Torture: - Logic of Torture: - Ratification as Concession: - Multiparty dactiarorshps are more likley to torture Make concessions to hold on to power Low costs concession, no one to enforce it

Simmons - Case of CEDAW:

- RQ: Does ratification of CEDAW improve respect for women's rights? - 3 clusters of rights examined: - Education - Work - Reproductive Rights

Simmons - Case of Civil Rights:

- RQ: Does ratification of the ICCPR improve respect for civil and political rights? - 3 clusters of rights: - Freedom of religion - Fair trials - Abolition of death penalty

Who Includes Reservations:

- Rich countries - Rule of law-abiding - Not democratic - Common law - Muslim countries - If neighbors do

International Legal Approaches: Transnational Legal Process Model

- States internalize norms - Compliance becomes second nature for states over time - Similar to construcgivst approach

International Legal Approaches: Fairness Model

- States will comply if law is fair and legitimate

• "50 Years of Activity: The European Court of Human Rights Some Facts and Figures" (skim)

- The European Convention on Hu,an Rights, an international treaty drawn up within the council of Europe was opened for signature in 1950 and was entered into force in 1953 - The scope was fundemental protection, but it was also establisehd to examine allged violations and obligaitons under the convention - Finally set up in 1959 - Original system was ran by three instititions, the Euripean Commision on Human Rights, The Euroepan Court of Human Rights, and the Comittee of Minissters of the Council of Europe - Since 1998 when Protocol No. 11 was entered into force, the first of these two insititions were replaced by a single full time European Cort of Human Rights - Over the past 50 years the court has ruled on 12,000 judgments - The Court seat is the Human Rights Building in Strasbourg, , and covers the HR of 800 million Europeans who live in teh 47 states that have ratified. KEY DATES: 1959 = First members of Court elected by the Consultative Assembly 1960 = first ruling of the Court 1998 = Protocol 11 changed everything 2008 = court delivers its 10,000 judgment - In 2010 around 120,000 applications were pending before a decision body, and ore than half of those were from either Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, or Romania - Since the reform of the Court in 1998, they have increased caseloads, 90% of the courts rulings are from 1998-2009

Christensen, Henrik S. 2011. "Political Activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or Political Participation by Other Means."

- The impact of the Internet on political participation has been a debated issue in recent decades. - Internet activities have been criticized for being slacktivism, where the real life impact of the activities is limited; the main effect is to enhance the feel-good factor for participants. - This article examines whether this accusation is valid. It does so by examining two aspects of Internet campaigns: 1.) Whether they are effective in affecting real-life political decisions, 2.) and whether Internet activism substitutes traditional forms of off-line participation. - Although it is not possible to determine a consistent impact of Internet campaigns on real-life decisions, there is no evidence of the substitution thesis. *If anything, the Internet has a positive impact on off-line mobilization. Accordingly, there is little evidence to support the accusation of Internet campaigns being slacktivism. It is at worst harmless fun and can at best help invigorate citizens.* - As the recent creation of social networking sites such as Facebook has transformed the meaning of citizen activism and furthered what has recently been referred to as micro-activism (Marichal, forthcoming). - The derogatory epithet used for these activities is 'slacktivism', which refers to political activities that have no impact on real-life political outcomes, but only serve to increase the feel-good factor of the participants - Worries have been expressed that these activities are pointless in that they are unable to achieve political goals and can derail political participants away from the more effective forms of participation in the activist repertoire that have traditionally been used (Putnam, 2000). QUESTION: This article examines whether performing acts of political participation on the Internet should be seen as slacktivism or as virtual activism. This involves examining whether Internet activities affect formal political decisions? And whether the Internet participants are more or less prone to be politically active in more traditional forms of participation. - Following this, slacktivism is introduced as one of the major critiques that have been launched against political participation via the Internet. Two central critiques are identified; 1) that online activism is less effective; and, 2) that the online activities replace traditional offline participation thereby leading to lower overall levels of participation. The third and fourth sections deal with these critiques to assess their merits. - Political Participation Defintion: action by ordinary citizens directed towards influencing some political outcomes. In line with this view, political participation has become somewhat ambiguous, as it includes a number of new citizen activities. -- New Political activies fit this definition - One of these new forms of participation involves the use of the Internet for political purposes. Participation on the Internet may involve electronic versions of traditional forms of participation, such as electronic and online voting or online petition signing - Another possible impact of the Internet on political participation is enhancing traditional participation by easing the dissemination of information on activities and events to a broader public and making coordination easier for activists - Marichal (forthcoming) uses the term micro-activism to refer to the small scale, many-to-many forms of politically oriented communication. Even if it is hard to find exact numbers on the extent of the phenomenon, there is little doubt that the possibilities on the Internet has exploded in the last few years. *The Internent and Slacktivism* - Skacktivism = The concept generally refer to activities that are easily performed, but they are considered more effective in making the participants feel good about themselves than to achieve the stated political goals (Morozov, 2009). Slacktivism can take other expressions, such as wearing political messages in various forms on your body or vehicle, joining Facebook groups, or taking part in short-term boycotts such as Buy Nothing Day or Earth Hour. - Although Internet activities are particularly prone to this accusation, slacktivism does not include all political activities performed on the Internet. The phenomenon excludes online activities such as Internet hacking, since these activities require more effort and are therefore generally considered valid examples of political participation (Jordan and Taylor, 2004). - In this sense, the availability of electronic forms of "activism" may even lead to deterioration in the quality of participation, since people who would otherwise get involved through traditional means may instead opt for digital opportunities, believing that these activities are a sufficient replacement. - To some extent this critique is overstated. Many traditional acts of political participation do not necessarily require great efforts on behalf of the participants, nor are they necessarily efficient ways to further political preferences. It is hard to see why signing a petition or even voting in real life should be seen as a great sacrifice — at least in democracies where threats of retributions from authorities rarely occur — whereas doing it online is meaningless and effortless. - As this discussion makes clear, the critique of Internet activism involves two central issues: 1. Internet activities are not effective; and, 2. Internet activists do not engage in other activities. These issues are the central issues in the remainder of this paper. Evgeny Morozov (2009) ends his discussion on slacktivism by citing a need to develop appropriate data sources for examining the phenomenon more thoroughly. The following presents a first step in this effort. *The effect of Internet Activism on Politcal Decision Making* - In order for Internet activities to be adequate replacements for off-line forms of participation, these activities should be efficacious ways to further political interests. - , many of the Internet sites aiming to mobilize citizens online through what Marichal (forthcoming) calls micro-activism, emphasize that they have achieved an actual political impact through their online activities. THEN LIST EXAMPLES OF WHAT WEBSITES TO DO THIS^ - Then claims those websites claim success, anti slacktivism, gives a list of reasons why this might not be credible. Summation below. - Although many of these projects may be sympathetic projects that support many laudable causes, their claims for success are unsubstantiated. This does not mean that efforts such as these are necessarily without an impact, but it is not possible to settle conclusively what percentage of Internet activities are successful and how important they generally are in reaching stated goals. *The activities of Internet Activists* - The second criticism launched against Internet activism is that effortless online activities supplant traditional forms of engagement, and the spread of online activities may therefore have negative consequences for both the extent of political participation as well as the efficacy of activities. - A number of studies have examined the impact of being politically active online on off-line political participation. By piecing together the results it is possible to gain a more complete understanding of how Internet activity affects political participation. The different measures and data sets used should make the findings more credible - the following presents examples of some studies that cast doubt on the purported positive effects of the Internet on citizen engagement. In this sense, they are in line with the slacktivist account of Internet political activities, since they support the notion that being active on the Internet does not lead to off-line participation. According to this view, slacktivism may well be replacing traditional participation, and thereby lead to a lower overall quality of participation. - RESEARCH TERRAIN OF ALL THE STUDIES THAT HAVE BEEN DONE ON THIS - All these studies question the existence of a positive effect of Internet activity on political participation. However, none suggest a negative effect from using the Internet for political purposes on participation in real life. - Other studies find a positive effect of Internet activity on political participation (Stanley and Weare, 2004; Tolbert and McNeal, 2004; Norris, 2005; Puig-i-Abril and Rojas, 2007), although it is not necessarily strong positive effects. - Even if we modestly suggest that the precise impact of Internet activities on political participation is still a matter of dispute, there is no evidence for a negative effect of the Internet on off-line participation - Even the most skeptical scholars at most find a weak and non-significant linkage, but none find a negative impact. - Accordingly, there is no evidence to suggest that Internet activism is replacing traditional political participation. If anything, it is helping mobilize citizens by increasing an awareness of contemporary issues. *Conclusion* - This paper has examined these two critiques against online activities to examine their relative merits. This makes it possible whether online participation in its most typical forms can be dismissed as slacktivism or should be taken serious as political participation by other means. - As concerns the efficaciousness of the online activities, there is a lack of reliable data to sustain the purported success of various Internet campaigns. For this reason, it is not possible to determine unequivocally whether Web sites actually have the impact they claim to. - . Online and off-line participation are not necessarily mutually exclusive forms of citizen engagement. This concerns the second aspect of the slacktivist critique, i.e., that online activities supplant traditional forms of participation, thereby leading to a lower overall level of civic engagement. - Most evidence in recent years suggests that being active online promotes off-line participation as well. Although this link is not necessarily very strong, there is certainly no evidence of a negative effect from Internet activity. - Instead, most recent research suggests a positive — albeit weak — link between online activity and engagement in off-line political participation. This suggests that being involved in effortless political activities online does not replace traditional forms of participation, if anything, they reinforce off-line engagement. - *It is therefore ill-advised to dismiss Internet activism as slacktivism as opposed to genuine political participation.* - Doubtless, all purported slacktivists will not become active off-line as well, and the majority of the virtual activists may never progress beyond effortless forms of Internet activism. Nonetheless, the effortless Internet activities are at worst harmless fun (or an annoyance, but nonetheless harmless) without any effect on real-life politics. At best, they may help raise awareness about political issues and even mobilize citizens to take other forms of action outside the virtual world. - There is a need to explore what mechanisms turn slacktivists into activists, since clicking a button is rarely enough. This especially necessary since there is no evidence that the Internet can, nor ever will, provide a full good substitute for traditional activism. The best results seem to be obtained by using the means available, whether they are off-line or online.

Niki Haley 2018 - "Why We're Leaving the So-Called Human Rights Council; Allies said U.S. participation was the last shred of credibility left in the organization."

- There is an international organization whose members include the repressive regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and China. - In the past decade, this organization has passed more resolutions to condemn Israel specifically than to condemn Syria, Iran and North Korea combined. - Yet all of these details describe the misnamed U.N. Human Rights Council. In truth, the council provides cover for governments with awful human-rights records, and - it refuses to eliminate its Agenda Item 7, which targets Israel unfairly by mandating that each session include a discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. - After more than a year of unsuccessful efforts to fix these fundamental defects, *the U.S. delegation announced Tuesday our withdrawal from the council.* - There are two major reasons that so many countries have resisted U.S.-led reform efforts. 1.) The first is baked into the council's composition. - A credible human-rights council would pose a threat to these countries, so they oppose the steps needed to create one. Instead they obstruct investigations and reports, while interfering with the council's ability to name and shame the perpetrators 2.) The second reason for resistance to reform is even more frustrating. Many countries agree with the U.S. about shunning human-rights violators and supporting Israel--but only behind closed doors. - Some even told us they were fine with the council's flaws, as long as it let them address their pet issues. This is not a moral compromise we are willing to make - *In the end, our allies' case for the U.S. to stay on the council was actually the most compelling argument to leave. They said American participation was the last shred of credibility left in the organization. But a stamp of legitimacy on the current Human Rights Council is precisely what the U.S. should not provide.* - We will continue to push the Human Rights Council for reforms that would make it worthy of our involvement. Any country willing to work with us to reshape the council need only ask. We believe in the sovereignty of all U.N. member states, but no country should use that sovereignty as a shield when it proliferates weapons of mass destruction, promotes terrorism or commits mass atrocities.

Vreeland, James Raymond. 2008. "Political Institutions and Human Rights: Why Dictatorships Enter into the United Nations Convention Against Torture." International Organization 62: 65-101. (read only pages 65-94, do not read appendix)

- This article addresses a puzzle: dictatorships that practice torture are more likely to accede to the UN Convention Against Torture ~CAT! than dictatorships that do not practice torture+ - Torture is more likely to occur where power is shared+ In one-party or no-party dictatorships, few individuals defect against the regime+ Consequently, less torture occurs+ - But dictatorships are protorture regimes; they have little interest in making gestures against torture, such as signing the CAT+ There is more torture where power is shared, such as where dictatorships allow multiple political parties - Alternative political points of view are endorsed, but some individuals go too far - Dictatorships are less likely than democracies to enter into certain economic agreements, 1 they are less likely than democracies to enter into human rights agreements, 2 and, generally speaking, the commitments of dictatorships are less credible than those of democracies - What is torture and how is it measured? The CAT defines torture as any act inflicted under public authority by which severe pain or suffering ~physical or mental! is intentionally inflicted on a person for the purposes of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or discrimination+ - *My study shows that domestic political institutions can, in part, explain the strange pattern of participation for dictatorships+ In particular, it shows that dictatorships that have multiparty systems have higher levels of torture and are more likely to participate in the CAT+* - onsider two types of dictatorships: a dictatorship with multiple political parties versus a dictatorship that is "closed" to multiple parties, where power is concentrated in just one political party, one junta, or one man - "closed" dictatorships rely on fear and intimidation to rule, rather than the co-optation of groups organized through political parties+ 14 If this is so, perhaps the fear is so great that few individuals choose to defect against the regime+ Individuals recognize that punishment for defection is a near certainty, so defection is not common+ Consequently, less actual torture is necessary+ But make no mistake; like all dictatorships, these are "protorture" regimes+ -+ In such situations, individuals fear prosecution for the falsely confessed crimes and are willing to act as informants for the dictatorship+ 15 Such dictatorships have no interest in making even a symbolic gesture of signing the CAT, much less ratifying it+ Torture serves as a deterrent agains - There is more torture where power is shared, 17 such as where dictatorships allow multiple political parties+ By legalizing parties, dictatorships explicitly endorse at least some alternative political points of view+ Often dictatorships allow these parties to compete in elections to fill legislative seats that even may have some legislative jurisdiction+ 18 -Because power is not absolute, individuals realize that not all acts of disagreement with the ruling party are punished, so more defections occur FOR BACKGROUND ON CAT READ 71 - 73 ARGUMENT: *Why do governments enter into the CAT? The pattern of participation for democracies is easy to understand+ These governments are, by and large, de facto compliant so they sign+ In the rare instances where torture is practiced and signing might be costly, democracies are less likely to sign+ The puzzle is why dictatorships that practice torture enter into the CAT, while dictatorships that do not practice torture do not enter* - I argue that torture is likely to be employed only in regimes that lack absolute power - The median level of torture under all dictatorships is "occasional" according to both measures of torture I use+ But the need to torture to elicit information and to exert social control may be lower where there is no power-sharing+ - But there are limits+ With less deterrence and more ambiguity, some individuals go too far Ironically, more torture is employed than in one-party or no-party dictatorships+ Thus, I predict the presence of political parties to be associated with higher levels of torture - *I show that, compared to dictatorships without multiple parties, average rates of torture are higher in dictatorships that endorse alternative political points of view through legal parties+ All of the dictatorships mentioned above practiced some degree of torture, but it seems less torture is required to maintain the "closed" one-party or no-party regimes *WHY DO DICTATORS ENTER CAT?* - Some dictatorships face sufficiently weak opposition that they are not dependent on support from groups within society+ They effectively rule through fear, as Gandhi argues+ Yet other dictatorships "maintain institutions to solicit cooperation or to extend their tenure in power+" - I argue that entering into the CAT is another concession that institutionalized dictatorships make+ While not costless, it is at least a relatively cheap concession+ The international costs are low since nearly all dictatorships opt out of the international dimensions of the CAT+ So the main implications are domestic+ I - The CAT may not go as far as all parties would like, but it represents a step in the right direction+ Dictatorships under institutionalized legal parties thus face pressure to enter into the CAT+ While not costless, the CAT is a relatively cheap concession+ The small cost is outweighed by the benefit from paying off organized parties who provide support for the regime in return for policy concessions+ - Even a symbolic gesture against torture could introduce ambiguity over the limitations the dictatorship has - From a domestic political perspective, signing, much less ratifying, the CAT is not in the interest of such dictatorships+ They receive no benefit by pleasing organized parties, and they face costs in terms of the message the CAT sends about their regime, as well as the potential costs even the minimal international enforcement the CAT might bring+ Therefore, in terms of the selection question—why dictatorships enter into the CAT—I predict that dictatorships facing legal political parties are more likely to enter than dictatorships without political parties+ SUMMARY: 1.) *The first part of my argument is that torture is more likely to be practiced where dictatorships share power+ Hence dictatorships with multiple political parties are more likely to practice torture* 2.) *The second step of my argument is that dictatorships facing multiple political parties have been found to grant concessions to interest groups within society+ Hence I argue that the effect of the multiparty institution is to make a dictatorship more likely to enter into the CAT* - The problem is, of course, the following: If dictatorships facing multiple political parties must grant them concessions, why are there more instances of torture in these situations than in closed or noninstitutionalized dictatorship? The answer is that one observes actual instances of torture, not potential torture+ To think another way, one does not observe the level of torture off the equilibrium path+ Less torture is observed under "closed" dictatorships because potential defectors recognize that if they act against the regime, they will be punished with certainty+ When a dictatorship opens up and allows parties to operate, the degree of control of the dictatorship diminishes+ Torture is not a certain punishment for defection+ As a result, more defection occurs, and more torture actually takes place+ - *ls of torture not enter into the CAT? These closed dictatorships rely on fear to maintain power+ They are not opposed to using torture+ The reason that they do not have to actually practice high levels of torture is that this fear is working+ Citizens do not defect against the regime because if they did, they would be tortured+ The last thing such a dictator wants to do is grant even a symbolic gesture against torture+ Not entering into the CAT is a strategic gesture indicating that they can and will use torture to maintain control+ More open dictatorships would also like to rely on fear, but they face organized political interests in the form of legalized political parties who alter their payoffs from entering into the CAT+ For them, the small benefits outweigh the small costs+* SKIPPED OVER EVIDENCE SECTION - *I contend this is a spurious connection driven by two coincidental processes at the domestic level+ ~1! Dictatorships that legally endorse more than one political point of view by legalizing political parties ironically practice higher levels of torture than closed dictatorships+ The argument follows that idea that violence is higher when power is divided+ ~2! Dictatorships with political parties face pressure to adopt policies to co-opt support, including the adoption of international arrangements such as the CAT* The fact that institutional arrangements under dictatorship influence CAT selection indicates that dictatorships with specific institutional arrangements may also be more likely to enter into other types of international arrangements, particularly other human rights treaties+ If organized domestic political parties influence dictatorships to enter into the CAT, they may exert similar influence on their governments to enter into such conventions as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child What do the findings presented here imply about the usefulness of the CAT? While certainly not a ringing endorsement, these results indicate that the apparent correlation between CAT participation and worsening respect for human rights may be overstated+ So from a policy point of view, the evidence presented in this article does not suggest that international conventions such as the CAT do harm+ 85 The evidence does suggest, however, that the good they can do depends on domestic politics—in particular, on institutional arrangements—even if the regime is a dictatorial one+ - Multiple political parties under dictatorship may represent more than just *window dressing*+ International organizations may find domestic allies organized under dictatorial institutions+

What was the UN Commission on Human Rights? Why did it fail?

- UN Commission on Human Rights - Subsidiary of economic and social counsel - "no power to take any action in regard to any complaints concerning human rights - Drafter international bill of rights (UDHR and ICCPR and ICESCR) - "normative foundation stage

Kony 2013: U.S. quietly intensifies effort to help African troops capture infamous warlord." The Washington Post

- US Special forces soldiers were camping through the Congo to get to the encamplent used by the Lord's Resitance Army, a band of rebels led by the warlord Joseph Kony who kidnaps and kills villagers - They got to the camp late, everyone was gone and could not find Kony - U.S. troops have forged unconventional alliances, collaborating with members of the advocacy group whose viral Internet video last year made Kony one of the world's most famous thugs and coordinating with two American philanthropists who are paying for teams of tracking dogs to accompany the African forces. - Senior U.S. officials say the Pentagon has asked the White House for permission to further widen the mission by temporarily basing sophisticated Air Force CV-22 Osprey aircraft in Uganda, allowing American and African troops to move across a broader area and more quickly assault Kony's camps. - Kony is a tenacious adversary. His fighters, some of whom were conscripted as children, are divided among several semiautonomous cells spread across an area the size of Texas - Under rules set by the Obama White House, the Special Operations troops involved in the pursuit are not allowed to conduct unilateral missions — their role is limited to training and advising African forces. - American soldiers have begun to drop into the jungle from helicopters and skulk up to rebel camps with their African partners. If a battle ensues, the Americans are supposed to pull back; their rules permit shooting only in self-defense - The U.S. military plays a far more critical role in everything that leads up to the raids: the compilation of intelligence reports, the planning for missions and the provision of helicopters to transport troops. Defense contractors have expanded jungle bases and built airstrips. Air Force Special Operations pilots haul supplies in planes intended to avoid a second glance — Polish-built twin-props painted to resemble civilian aircraft. - In many ways, the military effort is regarded by top commanders as a model for addressing pockets of instability around the world — facilitating local forces to lead the fight instead of having Americans charge ahead as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan - Kony merits U.S. involvement because his malign behavior runs counter to "our core values." *Invisible Children* - The U.S. military's journey to the camp here has its origins in the same young activists who created the "Kony 2012" Internet video - The filmmakers, three young friends from San Diego, started campaigning against Kony a decade ago after making a movie about "night commuters" — children in northern Uganda who walked for hours every evening to sleep away from their homes because they feared abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army. - In 2008, after peace talks between Kony and the Ugandan government collapsed, Invisible Children began to advocate for a more robust U.S. response to assist African nations in pursuing him. - The filmmakers were joined by three other young Americans who had established an advocacy group, now called The Resolve, seeking to raise awareness about Kony in Washington. - The activists organized a rally outside Oprah Winfrey's television studio and managed to get on her show. They held rallies involving thousands of students, which garnered local news coverage across the country. In 2009, they brought 1,700 children for a day of lobbying in Congress. - The following week, a bill calling for greater U.S. efforts to disarm the Lord's Resistance Army — but stopping short of requiring the deployment of U.S. troops — attracted more than 100 sponsors. Republicans and Democrats signed up with equal vigor. - The bill was signed into law by President Obama in May 2010, prompting the State and Defense departments to dispatch teams to Africa to study options for increasing U.S. involvement. - The following March, Invisible Children released "Kony 2012," the 30-minute video in which Jason Russell, one of the group's founders, delivers an impassioned plea for a sustained campaign to pursue the rebels. Within a month, it had been viewed 88 million times. - This August, 75 House members sent a letter to Obama urging him to "remain committed" until the Lord's Resistance Army "is defeated once and for all." - A month later, when Obama announced he would ask Congress to approve airstrikes against Syria only 8 of the 75 supported it. Key Tool: Defections - U.S. officers involved in the mission figured they had only months — as the Pentagon officials told Congress — to capture or kill Kony. - But the U.S. Embassy in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, refused to permit the advisers to leave their bases. Under rules set by the White House, decisions about what the U.S. troops can and cannot do rest not with the Pentagon but with the State Department. And State, in the view of one Special Operations officer involved in the mission at the time, "didn't want to take any risks." - Those who had made it out in recent years said that many others also want to flee but that Kony had convinced them that they would be killed or imprisoned by Ugandan authorities. - The American activists saw an opportunity: The Special Operations troops could focus their energy on air-dropping leaflets to encourage defections and driving around to persuade villagers in the Central African Republic to welcome those forsaking Kony. - U.S. diplomats believed it was essential to train troops from Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, all of which had been affected by Kony, to mount a coordinated campaign and increase regional ties. - But despite repeated efforts, Congo's government, which does not regard Kony as a significant threat, refused to commit troops to the hunt — or allow Ugandan forces to operate within its borders. The South Sudanese were slow to offer personnel, and when they did, the Americans were equally slow to begin training. *A 'model' of cooperation* - The September raid may have been a tactical failure, but U.S. commanders view it as a strategic victory. For the first time, the Americans' renewed vigor was matched with meaningful contributions from Congo and South Sudan — and critical leadership from Uganda, which has resumed hunting Kony in the Central African Republic. - African troops and their U.S. advisers are also being aided by two American philanthropists, who are paying $120,000 a month for six Belgian Malinois tracking dogs and their handlers *Pinpointing the Needle* - Kony's army has not perpetrated a large-scale attack since the U.S. deployment commenced. His principal aim now appears to be avoiding his pursuers. - As a consequence, U.S. commanders have concluded that the most critical step in getting to Kony is not training the African forces — the Ugandan army can hold its own in a gunfight — but pinpointing his location. - Although reports from villagers and defectors have been helpful, the U.S. military has increased the frequency of drone and other surveillance flights over the Central African Republic. "He'll pop up," the officer said. "It's only a matter of time - He and his team are convinced they are getting closer to Kony. But they still don't know for sure how near — or far — they are. "It's easy to hide in the jungle," he said. "We have to be patient."

US and the Human Rights Council:

- US and the creation of the Human Rights Council - US withdrawal from the HRC - Should the US seek re-election to the Human Rights Council? Or stay out of it?

US and the Disabilities Convention:

- US position: 2012 Senate vote failed - Why has the US failed to ratify the UN Disabilities Convention?

IR Approach: Liberal Institonalism

- Weights cost & benefits - Self enforcing

Overview Feb 28th

- What are the European Court of Human Rights and the African Court of Human Rights? - Some key judgments - Challenges facing the Courts = Comparing these Courts

Summary February 19th Powerpoint:

- What broad conclusions can we draw about HRA ratification? Potential benefits Potential costs Role of norms - Why do dictatorships and/or repressive states ratify human rights treaties? - US and the Disabilities Convention

Concluding Questions: Feb 26th PP

- What challenges face the international human rights regimes face? - Why would human rights violators want to be on the Human Rights Council? - Can the UNHRC avoid being politicized?

Voting in Council:

- What criticisms has the Human Rights Council faced? - Has it improved on the Commission? States vote in blocks It is highly politicized

What does this all suggest for the characteristics that make countries more/less likely to ratify HRAs?

- What should make countries more likely? - What should make countries less likely?

Alston, Philip. 2006. "Reconceiving the UN Human Rights Regime: Challenges Confronting the New UN Human Rights Council." Melbourne Journal of International Law 7, 1: 185-224.

- [In 2006, the UN Commission on Human Rights, established 60 years earlier, was replaced by a new Human Rights Council. This article examines the widely differing reasons given for the Commission's loss of credibility and seeks to draw lessons relevant to the new institutional regime which the Council must build. - Argument: This article examines the widely differing reasons given for the Commission's loss of credibility and seeks to draw lessons relevant to the new institutional regime which the Council must build. It argues that the preoccupation with the Council's composition, and the exclusion of violators, fails to address the more important factors in the Commission's downfall. Detailed consideration is given to the potential strengths and pitfalls involved in establishing a system of universal periodic review of the human rights performance of every state, and of the need to learn from the dismal failure of a very similar exercise undertaken by the Commission between 1956 and 1981. Aim: The aims of this article are to seek a clearer understanding of where the Commission went wrong and to address the three key issues that have emerged from the recent debates. 1.) "The first issue is that of membership. While it has been formally resolved it is nonetheless essential to understand the nature of the controversy over which states should belong to the Council and what, if any, criteria or procedures could be used to ensure that its membership will be genuinely supportive of its human rights objectives. " 2.) To address the second issue of performance review, the article will determine whose performance the Council should scrutinise and, in particular, how the proposed 'universal periodic review', agreed upon by the General Assembly, should be implemented. 3.) Finally, the article will identify the techniques that might be used by the new Council to avoid repeating some of the more egregious shortcomings of its discredited predecessor. ARTICLE IS EXTREMLEY HISTORY HEAVY, VERY LONG WILL ASK ALLENDORFER IF NEEDED. INSTEAD THIS CARD FOCUSES ON CONCLUSION! - The analysis of the fall of the Commission and the debates that surrounded it lead to several concluding observations. 1.) The first concerns the complex, even bizarre nature of the process of reform. It is a story of competing perspectives, often based on fundamentally incompatible assumptions, nevertheless coalescing to provide the impetus for major structural changes. The almost completely contradictory diagnoses put forward by different groups of states, and the radically different expectations that they hold for the outcome of the reform process, are a striking part of the mix. *These inconsistencies serve to highlight several characteristics of the current situation, including: the problematic nature of actually achieving deep-rooted change despite agreement on major institutional restructuring; the uncertain nature of the process and the difficulty of predicting whether the eventual outcomes will be more favourable to human rights; and the inability of any one group of states to dominate the debate or to impose any particular formula for reform.* 2.) The second observation is that the reform episode represents a fascinating case study of the role of various non-state actors, particularly in a setting in which state preferences were both inconsistent and often not clearly formulated. These include the UN Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the High-Level Panel and leading NGOs. - The Secretary-General played a key role by focusing on reform of the human rights machinery in some of his earlier analyses and by commissioning an independent expert group — the High-Level Panel — which endorsed the need for reform and honed some of the proposals that the Secretary-General himself might not have been able to put forward. Furthermore, at a critical moment the Secretary-General added his weight to the criticism of the Commission's performance and its general lack of credibility.1 - The High Commissioner for Human Rights made an important contribution by pushing forward a program of action for her Office in the midst of a crucial phase of the reform process, and by ensuring that the plan, ostensibly dealing with administrative reorganisation and financing, contained something of a blueprint for major reform of the system itself.1 - High-Level Panel had no particular 'standing' within the UN system beyond the influence of its members and the persuasiveness of its analysis and prescriptions.170 Despite this, the Panel may have proven that it is easier to create institutions than to bring about thorough reform.171 Nevertheless, its emphasis on the 'legitimacy deficit' of the Commission and on the desirability of creating a new Council proved to be extremely influential.1 - Finally, the major international NGOs in the human rights field — notably Amnesty International and HRW, as well as some of the influential regional groups such as the Asian Human Rights Commission — helped by putting forward specific formulae for reform and by keeping the media attention at a sufficiently high level to ensure momentum. 3.) The third observation is that the largely illusory nature of one of the most influential arguments used in pushing for reform — the need to ensure that human rights violators have no place as members of the Commission — did not significantly undermine the argument in public discourse or prevent it from providing impetus to the broader reform movement. - Reform would not have occurred if the US, stung by its own rejection in 2001 and by its inability to secure consistent condemnation of certain states, had not launched a major campaign aimed at ensuring that non-democratic states and states that did not respect human rights would be excluded from membership in a reformed body. Yet neither the US Government nor other observers were able to come up with a convincing definition of the states that should be excluded or a workable formula for ensuring their exclusion. - While the resulting reforms have gone a little way towards improving the composition of the Council elected in May 2006, they have certainly not achieved the paradigmatic change that was central to the rhetoric of reform promoted by the US and its allies. Instead, the approach adopted by the High-Level Panel was to some extent vindicated. It advocated universal membership, primarily, it seems, in order to eliminate the membership debate once and for all and thereby 'to focus attention back on to substantive issues rather than who is debating and voting on them'. 4.)The fourth observation concerns the challenges that lie ahead. The international human rights regime has evolved in a singularly unplanned way — one that better reflects the determination of different states to prevent certain developments from transpiring than one that has been built upon any coherent underlying vision of the system. - The grand vision of renewal and reform generally associated with the project of creating the Council will not be achieved without a concerted effort to ensure that the previous flaws are rejected and that the principal tools available to the Council are used effectively. END: This article has focussed on the need to take the universal periodic review process seriously and, in particular, to avoid the pitfalls which ensured that the previous international endeavour of this type ended in complete failure. In addition, the system of special procedures should be conceived of as the backbone of the new Council. *This will require that all of the relevant actors, and not least the special procedure mandate-holders, grasp the opportunities presented by the Council's creation to make that system more coherent, professional and effective.*

What is the UN Human Rights Council? What are its prospects for success?

- post 1967 - Resolution 1235 (public) - country madates and public condemnation - Resolution 1503 (private - Institution building stage

International Legal Approaches: Managerial Model

- state compacity - No compacity, cannot comply - Try to increase capacity so they can comply

Domestic Laws, 5 Cs:

1.) Congress Code - - where does international law come from? Court - Some body that adjudicates that decides if a partuclar behavior is in violation of a law or not Means for enforcing or punishing

Essentials 3.2 The Normative and Institutional Evolution of International Human Rights Thomas Buergenthal

1.) Stage one: the Normative Foundation "first stage is entry into the force of the UN Charter and continue at least through the adoption of the 1966 International Covenant on Human Rights" - This was the period where there was the most normative consolidation of human rights legislation occured - 2 Factors explain this development: 1.) Human Rights and other instruments came to be accepted defining the basic human rights obligations that the Member states of the United Ntions had acepted by ratifying the Charter. 2.) Once it was acknolwedge that the charter, a multilateral treaty had created some human rights obligations for the member states, it followed as a matter of international law that human rights had to that extent been internationalized and removed from the protective domain of a subject that was previously essential within thier domestic juridcition. - The notion that the UN should be the international protector of the rights of the individual grew out of the 2nd world war, and the violations of human rights of the holocuast. - People beleived that UN could have stopped Hitler if it were a thing, and that the league of nations was weak, but large states, US, Soviet Union, France, and the UK had there own human rights problems and blocked UUN charter cointaing human rights provisions - Small countries wanted bill of rights to be included in UN charter, but did not have political influence to prevail - Article 1(3) Article 55 (C), Article 56, were the human rights provisions that were intentionally vague - The provisons did not establish an immediate obligation to observe human rights, not did they define what was meant by human rights and fundmenatll freedomes, they said stuff like protect universal respect for human rights -- intentionally vague - Despite being vague, Charter had important consequences 1.) International the concept of human rights - once entered in force, human rights issues ipso facto were no long matters essentially within domestic juridciiton 2.) The obligation of Member states of the UN to cooperate with the organization in the promotion of human rights provided teh UN w the requiste legal authority to take a massive effor tot define and codify these rights - this happened in the 1948 UDHR, which over time became accepted as a normative instrument in its own right, which speleld out HR obligatons of member states -the succes of the UN is reflected in the adoption of the International Bill of Rights and in the vast number of international HR instruments in existence today - It has endowed the invidiguals for whose beenfit these treates were concluded Stage two: Institution Building - Begins in the 1960's and continues for the next 15 - 20 years - During these years 2 distinct developments took place within the US framework. 1.) Focused on nature or scope of the human rights obligations that articel 55 and 56 imposed on member states - The vaugness is redefined, the obligation to promte universal respect fo rhuman rights became concrete in this time that - Apartheid example, it took the ECOSOC resoltuion that specifically outlawed this as a human rights violation - Alot of institutiosn formed during this time to stop apartheid in the 1960's but in the 1980's they were invoked to adresss massive violation of human rights in general. 2.) (cutoff top of pg 76) The period also saw the emergence of universial and regonal treaty based instututiosn for the protection of human rights - THe late 1970's the UNHR Committe on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, being with the entry force of the ICCP - The estbalisment of these related instititons contributed to the emergence of nongovernmental human rights orgnizations and laid the basis for thier growing signficance - The creation of the intergovernmental human rights instititons referred to above provided the non govenrmental organizaitons with there raison d^etre for filing human rights complains and mounting human rights enformcent campaigns on the national and international plane - There are a number of interrelated political reasons to texplain some of these developments - Main: by supportint these UN measures in regared to apartheid, the Soviet Union and its alleis gave the western democracies a strong opening in favor of expanind the jursidiciton o fhte UN human rights mechanisms to embrace not only apartheid but any other massive violaions of human rights This gave rise to a world wide expection abou the important role the UN and other organizations shoudl paly in adressing human rights violations Stage Three: Implementation in the Post Cold War Era - It is one thing to establish instititons on the international plane to promote and protect human rights, it is quite anothe to give them authority and tools they need to achieve their objective - It must be recngized that the political factors which contributed to the creation of the human rights instititons in the first place, make it increasingly more dificult for states not to comply with their human rights obligations - THe end of the Cold War fred maby nations in Eriope form Communism, permitting them to transform democractically, makign countries of the world more ideologically aligned - It enabled the UN to focus increasingly on obstacles to the implemtnation on Human rights - The end of the cold war effect is reflected in the 1993 vienna Declaration of Human Rights - While it does not come up with solutions to many intractable probelms faced in the international community, it identifies them and in the process demonstratees that there are few if any issues that are not international concern. - The recongiiton of Universal character of human rights and the commitant rejection of cultural relativism, which has been thought to justify human rights - All about the Vienna Declaration, read for the card on it page 77 - While the removal of political myths and legal ficitons has enablte dthe international community to focus oin the task of getting governments to comply with HR legisatlion, progrress will be slow - There are factors like disease, corrption, poverty, disease, lack of education and econ problems stop this deveopment and instil human rights violations - The fact that various instittions such as the World bank have been strengthing national insttitons and promoting rule of law and democratic policies in addition to economic development, is an important step in the process of implmenting human rights Stage Four: Individual Criminal Responsibility, Minority Rights, Collective Humanitarian INtervention - In Confronting violations of internationally gauranteed HR, the community has been holding governments rather than indiviuals intenrationall responsible - The idea is that government have a duty not only to not violat HR, but also to control all actiivies taking place within there territorry, inclduing obligaiton to punish violations - The focus has shifted in recent years with the recognition that some government are simply not able to protect those in tier jusridicition form human rights commited by powerful grops in the state - Potential violators will obviosuly not be deterred from enganging in massive human rights abuses in these countries if they know that they wil enjoy domestic impunity that at most only the state will be held internationally reponsible for their acts - This is focing the international communityt o exlore ways not only to hold state resoonsible, but also to act directly against individual swhom the staet is too weak or unwilling to punish - The UN is in the process fo establishgin a permanent intenational criminal court - The international community is alos developing leagal doctrines that would bar govenrments from granting amnesties to gross violatiosn, a practice that has tended to be imposed on weak governments by militaries regimes or other powefful groups before turning over power to civilians - On the whole the international community showed little interests during the formative years in establishing international systems for the protection of minority. - However this is historical true, but "considering we live in a world in which extreme nationalism and various forms of racial, ethnic, and religous intolerance are on the rise, it is safe to predict that efforts to protect minorities will increasiningly occupy the attention of the international community and result in greater legislative and inteitional citiviteis in the area. - The UN security council is today also increasinlgy taking action to deal with large scale human rights violations by authorizing enforcement measures under the powers of the UN charter granted in Chapter VII - What wer are seeing here is the emergence of a modern verison of collective humanitariain intervention that has its basis in the covergence of two important developments: 1.) The growing power of the Security Council in the post Cold War Era 2.) Increasing willingness of the international community to conferemassiv vilations of human rights with force, if necessary

Emergence of the UNHRC

2006 - UN Human Rights Council replaces the UN Commission on Human Rights - Subsidiary of GA Key Issues: 1. Membership 2. Selectivity and politicization - Membership criteria o Past investigations o Progressive realism o Treaty ratification o Geographical balance - Change of membership - US pushed hard for memebrship cirtiera (did not happen) - 2/3 of general assumbly to get a seat (diversity, spread norms) - Investigate countries, condemn countries, appoint special rapporter - US at first was activley agaisnt council, in 2009, changed mind and sought seat - Universial periodic review - every country in the UN UN Treat System: - UN treaties + RUD _- Treaty bodies

UNHRC in Action: Country Mandates

Commission of Inquiries (Burundi, Syria, 2018 Protests in OPT, - Fact-Finding Mission (Myanmar) - Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan - Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen - Kasai Region (DRC) Expert team

Sincere Ratifiers:

Definition: State ratifiers and follows the norms and laws Who are they? - Sweden, Norway, UK Why do they Ratify? The Benefits: Principle Spread nroms Domestic reputaiton/legimtacy Costs: Low cast Soverngty encroachment

International human rights legal regime in context:International Legal context

Differences between international law and domestic: - International System is anarchic wit no enformcent mechanisms - Domestic system is based on consent, with an enforcemnt mechnaism - Domestic law is consent based because states get to decide which laws to sign onto and follow Structural difference - International law spreads norms and allows for international monitoring.

Does treaty ratification change state behavior?

Does Ratification lead to improved human rights with respect to the country ratifying the treaty provisions? - Ratification does not have conditional effects - Ratification leads to Human rights improvements in democracy - Democracies have domestic audience, would not ratify unless people wanted change - More NGO's = more likely human rights will be improved Dependent Variables of findings: - A countries civil society - If they are a democracy or not - Treaty ratification (PTS+Freedom House)

Naming and Shaming in the UNCHR

Empirical Evidence - The worst abusers are targeted - Severity of punishment depends on alignment - Ratifying treaties did raise expectations - Countries with "good" records more likely to vote to "shame" violators - Countries are less likely to shame powerful targets Pics on Feb 26 pp

False Negatives

False Negatives: state doesn't rafity, but does follow the norm or law Who are they? United States Why do they ratify? They ratify because they believe in the cause, but the costs are to high Costs: High sovergntity encorachment Common law - how people interpret Divided govnement Federalism, checks and balances

Kennan, George F. 1985. "Morality and Foreign Policy." Foreign Affairs 205-218.

INTRODUCTION: a small volume of lectures published nearly thirty-five years ago/ I had the temerity to suggest that the American statesmen of the turn of the twentieth century were unduly legalistic and moralistic in their judgment of the actions of other governments - There have since been demands, particularly from the younger generation, that I should make clearer my views on the relationship of moral considerations to American foreign policy. The challenge is a fair one and deserves a response. 1.) First of all, the conduct of diplomacy is the responsibility of governments 2.) Second, let us recognize that the functions, commitments and moral obligations of governments are not the same as those of the individual - Government is an agent, not a principal. Its primary obligation is to the interests of the national society it represents, not to the moral impulses that individual elements of that society may experience - The interests of the national society for which government has to concern itself are basically those of its military security, the integrity of its political life and the well-being of its people. - These needs have no moral quality. They arise from the very existence of the national state in question and from the status of national sovereignty it enjoys. They are the unavoidable necessities of a national existence and therefore not subject to classification as either "good" or "bad." - the government of the sovereign state cannot make such judgments. When it accepts the responsibilities of governing, implicit in that acceptance is the assumption that it is right that the state should be sovereign, that the integrity of its political life should be assured, that its people should enjoy the blessings of military security, material prosperity and a reasonable opportunity for, as the Declaration of Independence put it, the pursuit of happiness. For these assumptions the government needs no moral justification, nor need it accept any moral reproach for acting on the basis of them. - the present situation of the United States in particular will have to agree that to assure these blessings to the American people is a task of such dimensions that the government attempting to meet it successfully will have very little, if any, energy and attention left to devote MORALITY AND FOREIGN POLICY 207 to other undertakings, including those suggested by the moral impulses of these or those of its citizens. - Finally, let us note that there are no internationally accepted standards of morality to which the U.S. government could appeal if it wished to act in the name of moral principles - . It is true that there are certain words and phrases sufficiently highsounding the world over so that most governments, when asked to declare themselves for or against, will cheerfully subscribe to them, considering that such is their vagueness that the mere act of subscribing to them carries with it no danger of having one's freedom of action significantly impaired - There is no disposition here to question the value of many of them as refinements of the norms of international intercourse. But there were some, particularly those related to human rights, which it is hard to relegate to any category other than that of the high-minded but innocuous professions just referred to. These accords were declaratory in nature, not contractual. The very general terms in which they were drawn up, involving the use of words and phrases that had different meanings for different people, deprived them of the character of specific obligations to which signatory governments could usefully be held. - plead naivete as their excuse for doing so. When we talk about the application of moral standards to foreign policy, therefore, we are not talking about compliance with some clear and generally accepted international code of behavior. - If the policies and actions of the U.S. government are to be made to conform to moral standards, those standards are going to have to be America's own, founded on traditional American principles of justice and propriety. When others fail to conform to those principles, and when their failure to conform has an adverse effect on American interests, as distinct from political tastes, we have every right to complain and, if necessary, to take retaliatory action. - What we cannot do is to assume that our moral standards are theirs as well, and to appeal to those standards as the source of our grievances. NEW IDEA: Let us now consider some categories of action that the U.S. government is frequently asked to take, and sometimes does take, in the name of moral principle. - IN REGARDS TO INTERVENTION THAT RELATE TO THE INTERNAL PRACTICES OF OFFENDING GOVERNMENTS: The situations that arouse our discontent are ones existing, as a rule, far from our own shores. Few of us can profess to be perfect judges of their rights and their wrongs. These are, for the governments in question, matters of internal affairs. It is customary for governments to resent interference by outside powers in affairs of this nature, and if our diplomatic history is any indication, we ourselves are not above resenting and resisting it when we find ourselves its object - Interventions of this nature can be formally defensible only if the practices against which they are directed are seriously injurious to our interests, rather than just our sensibilities. - Democracy is to loose of term for this to count, there are times were we are the Tyranny of the minority - IN regards to intervening to force democracy We are demanding, in effect, a species of veto power over those of their practices that we dislike, while denying responsibility for whatever may flow from the acceptance of our demands. - Finally, we might note that our government, in raising such demands, is frequently responding not to its own moral impulses or to any wide general movements of American opinion but rather to pressures generated by politically influential minority elements among us that have some special interest— ethnic, racial, religious, ideological or several of these together—in the foreign situation in question. - THERE is a lack of consitency in when we intervene and for what cauase which implies a lack of principle in most of the world, hereas morality, if not principled, is not really morality. - Where measures taken by foreign governments affect adversely American interests rather than just American moral sensibilities, protests and retaliation are obviously in order; but then they should be carried forward frankly for what they are, and not allowed to masquerade under the mantle of moral principle. - Democracy, as Americans understand it, is not necessarily the future of all mankind, nor is it the duty of the U.S. government to assure that it becomes that. Despite frequent assertions to the contrary, not everyone in this world is responsible, after all, for the actions of everyone else, everywhere. NEW IDEA: In a less than perfect world, where the ideal so obviously lies beyond human reach, it is natural that the avoidance of the worst should often be a more practical undertaking than the achievement of the best, and that some of the strongest imperatives of moral conduct should be ones of a negative rather than a positive nature. - This being the case, it is not surprising that some of the most significant possibilities for the observance of moral considerations in American foreign policy relate to the avoidance of actions that have a negative moral significance, rather than to those from which positive results are to be expected. - Many of these possibilities lie in the intuitive qualities of diplomacy—such things as the methodology, manners, style, restraint and elevation of diplomatic discourse—and they can be illustrated only on the basis of a multitude of minor practical examples, for which this article is not the place. There are, however, two negative considerations that deserve mention here 1.) Avoidance of histronics of morralism at the expense of its substance - It is a sad feature of the human predicament, in personal as in public life, that whenever one has the agreeable sensation of being impressively moral, one probably is not. What one does without self-consciousness or self-admiration, as a matter of duty or common decency, is apt to be closer to the real thing. 2.)second of these negative considerations pertains to something commonly called secret operations—a branch of governmental activity closely connected with, but not to be confused with, secret intelligence - These phenomena (HITLER AND STALIN) have represented, at different times, serious challenges to the security of nearly all Western countries. It is not surprising, therefore, that among the reactions evoked has been a demand that fire should be fought with fire, that the countries threatene - The success of our diplomacy has always depended, and will continue to depend, on its inherent honesty and openness of purpose and on the forthrightness with which it is carried out. Deprive us of that and we are deprived of our strongest armor and our most effective weapon. If this is a limitation, it is one that reflects no discredit on us. We may accept it in good conscience, for in national as in personal affairs the acceptance of one's limitations is surely one of the first marks of a true morality. NEW IDEA: So much, then, for the negative imperatives. When we turn to the positive ones there are, again, two that stand out. The first of them is closely connected with what has just 1.) The first of them is closely connected with what has just been observed about the acceptance of one's limitations. It relates to the duty of bringing one's commitments and undertakings into a reasonable relationship with one's real possibilities for acting upon the international environment - It is a duty that requires the shaping of one's society in such a manner that one has maximum control over one's own resources and maximum ability to employ them effectively when they are needed for the advancement of the national interest and the interests of world peace - This situation must be understood in relationship to the exorbitant dreams and aspirations of world influence, if not world hegemony—the feeling that we must have the solution to everyone's problems and a finger in every pie—that continue to figure in the assumptions underlying so many American reactions in matters of foreign policy. It must also be understood that in world affairs, as in personal life, example exerts a greater power than precept. A first step along the path of morality would be the frank recognition of the immense gap between what we dream of doing and what we really have to offer, and a resolve, conceived in all humility, to take ourselves under control and to establish a better relationship between our undertakings and our real capabilities. 2.) The second major positive imperative is one that also involves the husbanding and effective use of resources, but it is essentially one of purpose and policy - Except perhaps in some sectors of American government and opinion, there are few thoughtful people who would not agree that our world is at present faced with two unprecedented and supreme dangers. One is the danger not just of nuclear war but of any major war at all among great industrial powers—an exercise which modern technology has now made suicidal all around. The other is the devastating effect of modern industrialization and overpopulation on the world's natural environment. - The need for giving priority to the averting of these two overriding dangers has a purely rational basis—a basis in national interest—quite aside from morality CONCLUSION: The above are only a few random reflections on the great question to which this paper is addressed. But they would seem to suggest, in their entirety, the outlines of an American foreign policy to which moral standards could be more suitably and naturally applied than to that policy which we are conducting today. This would be a policy founded on recognition of the national interest, reasonably conceived, as the legitiniate motivation for a large portion of the nation's behavior, and prepared to pursue that interest without either moral pretension or apology. It would be a policy that would seek the possibilities for service to morality primarily in our own behavior, not in our judgment of others. - It would restrict our undertakings to the limits established by our own traditions and resources. It would see virtue in our minding our own business wherever there is not some overwhelming reason for minding the business of others. Priority would be given, here, not to the reforming of others but to the averting of the two apocalyptic catastrophes that now hover over the horizons of mankind. - But at the heart of this policy would lie the effort to distinguish at all times between the true substance and the mere appearance of moral behavior. - In an age when a number of influences, including the limitations of the electronic media, the widespread substitution of pictorial representation for verbal communication, and the ubiquitous devices of "public relations" and electoral politics, all tend to exalt the image over the essential reality to which that image is taken to relate— in such an age there is a real danger that we may lose altogether our ability to distinguish between the real and the unreal, and, in doing so, lose both the credibility of true moral behavior and the great force such behavior is, admittedly, capable of exerting - To do this would be foolish, unnecessary, and self-defeating.

Rochester, J. Martin. 2006. Between Peril and Promise: The Politics of International Law. Chapters 3:

JAKE

Rochester, J. Martin. 2006. Between Peril and Promise: The Politics of International Law. Chapters 4:

JAKE

Simmons, Beth. 2009. "Theories of Commitment" in Mobilizing for Human Rights.

JAKE

• "African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights: Ten Years Later On and Still No Justice"

JOHN

Risse & Sikkink. 1999 "Chapter 1: The socialization of international human rights norms into domestic practices." In The Power of Human Rights.

John

Saudi Arabia Reservations

On Power Point (Feb 14)

US Reservation to ICCPR

On powerpoint picture (Feb 14)

Do States Comply:

Picture on Feb 21 PP

What was the UNCHR:

Post-1967 - Resolution 1235 (public) - country mandates & public condemnation - Resolution 1503 (private) - Investigate Complaints confidentially - Encourages cooperation "institution building stage"

International human rights legal regime in context: Historical context

Pre- WW1 - Isolationist - Law based on trades - No international HR - HR are domestic, internation - Not international Interwar Period: - League of nations - 14 points plan - HR talk begins - Worker rights - Laws of war for prisoners of war started - Geneva Convention Post WWII - FDR: four freedoms speec - HR expands - Holocaust - UDR - Non-binding, not legal - Us and UK reluctant to legalize - Briker Amendment in US - lasting legacy for US on how US deals with international HR - Canada small countries push for legally binding treaties on Human Rights

"The ECHR in 50 Questions"

Questions on the European Convention on Human Rights 1.) When was the convention adopted? -opneed for signature on november 4th 1950 but entered into force on Septermber 3 1953 2.) What is a protocol to the convention? - a protocol is a text that adds one or more rights to the original convention 3.) What rights are protected by the convention? - freedom, life, fiar hearing, respect for private and family life, expression, thought, conseience, religon, property, prohibits torture, and degrading treatment of punishment, forced labor, aribtriatry and unlawful denttion, discrimination 4.) Does the convention evolve? it involves through European court interpretation 5.) are domestic courts obliged to apply the convention? Yes. 6.) What is the COurts composition? - same as that of the states parties to the convention 47 at the time 7.) How are judges elected? - by the parlmentary assembly of the counil of europe from a list of three candidates proposed by the state 8.) Are judges independent? Yes totally independent. 9) Do judges sit from thier own country when the case regards there country? - No on a single panel, but someitmes though when it is a smaller bench hearing they always sit. 10.) What is the registry and how is it run? - Staff of the court 11.) What is the Court's budget? - The expenditure is borne by the Council of Europe whose budget is finaced by contributions from members tates in accordance with scales based on population and GDP. 12.) Can the Court compositon vary from case to case? Yes. 13.) What is the difference between a chamber and a section? A secion is an administrative entity and a chamber is a judicial formation of the court. 14.) How are chmabers and Grand Chambers formed SKIM through when studying

Why do states comply (or not) with HRAs?

Reasons to Comply: Moral Reasons Safety Punishment Norms Not convienenient Low Costs Reasons to Not Comply - Conveince Lack of enforcment Don't agree Moral reasons Saftey Norms Enforcment costs, willingess Peer pressure Culture Centralizaiton/decentralization State capacity Compliance is Procedural Spirit of the law Letter of the law

What was the UN Commission on Human Rights?

Reported to the ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) - 1948-1967: standard-setting and declaratory - " no power to take any action in regard to any complaints concerning human rights" (ESC Res. 75 1947) - Drafted International Bill of Rights (UDHR and ICCPR and ICESCR) - "normative foundations" stage

Reservation in Practice: Trinidad and Tobago 1998

Reservation to ICCPR Optional Protocol to preclude individual petitions

Which states commit to HRAs (human rights agreements)? And why?

States commit to HR laws and treaties for 2 reasons: 1.) Moral / value - canada and scandavnaivan countries, genuinley want to do good 2.) Reputation - internationa law and domestic law "locking norms"

UN Security Council:

UN Security Council and human rights: "The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security" (ChpaterVII, Art 39) UN Security Council - If the HR issue falls into threatnes pace, then UNSC will intervene

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons:

US - 2012 senate vote failed

Questions of Membership

US 2001: lost Commission vote - Libya 2003: Chair - Sudan 2004: Elected to Commission - Working Group 2005: Cuba, Zimbabwe, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia -Debates over membership criteria

UNHRC in Action: UPR

US UPR (Nov 2010) US UPR (May 2015)

United States and Human Rights Agreements:

What are some possible explanations for low US ratification of HRAs? 1.) Bricker Amendment 2.) Sovereignty 3.) Federalism

Human Rights Council:

What can the HRC do? - Suspend member (requires 2/3rd vote of GA) - Appoint Special Rapporteur to investigate a country - Resolution to condemn particular country - Resolutions need sponsors/co-sponsors - Votes on Resolution - Adopt without vote - Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Process

Summary Feb 21:

What is compliance? Do states comply? Why or why not? International legal vs international relations explanations for compliance/non-compliance Suggestions for improving compliance?

False Postives

Who are they? - Syria, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia Why do they ratify? They raitfy to avoid costs, Social camfolage Legitmacy Costs: Low expeted enforcment

Summary of Feb 14th Lecture:

} What is the historical trajectory of international law regarding human rights? } Why does the regime emerge post WWII and not earlier? } How does international law, in general, differ from domestic law? } How does the human rights regime differ from other international issue areas? } How do different scholars approach the study of international law? } And what does this matter for our expectations about commitment

Genocide convention - US Reservations

♣ Denmark objection ♣ Nothing happens because of this however ♣ No mechanism beyond this to have any bearing on either countries decision

Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969)

♣ Within that: Pacta Sunt Servanda ♣ Defined what treaties are ♣ And how groups or states should follow them ♣ Legal obligation to operate under treaty ♣ Basically says this is what states need to do when they ratify a treaty and delineates between signatory and ratifyer ♣ Vienna convention stipulates that if you sign a treaty your not supposed to do anything that grossely violates it • Not necessarilty