Reviving Social Rights in Latin America: The Potential Role of International Human Rights Documents

Social rights are essential to our ability to fully participate in society. In Latin America, these rights are increasingly marginalized as neoliberal policies take hold. At the same time, the related concepts of civil society and social capital are often incorporated into strategies aimed at alleviating the problems of the Latin American poor. It is expected that by strengthening people's civic capacity, their sense of mutual responsibility and ability to self-provide certain services will be enhanced. In the context of the current policy environment, however, such strategies are unlikely to be entirely successful. Lack of economic resources may preclude the Latin American poor from effective civic participation. More importantly, the promotion of civil society and social capital on the part of aid agencies and governments may represent an implicit threat to social rights, in as much as the organizations advocated are not likely to actively struggle for expansion of rights. Nevertheless, human rights documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child provide a base upon which rights-based movements can be constructed.     

Violence,Nonviolence, and the Effects of International Human Rights Law

Under what conditions are individuals more likely to approve of human rights abuses by their governments? While various theoretical expectations have been offered about public approval of repression, many of them have not been directly tested. We analyze the effects of differing opposition tactics, differing government tactics, and legal constraints on approval of repression through a series of survey experiments in India, Israel, and Argentina. Our results indicate that violent action by opposition groups consistently increases support for government repression. In the context of contentious politics, we find that the effects of international law vary by national context. While our respondents in India were less likely to approve of their government when told the government violated international law, the same information likely increased approval of the government in our Israel experiment. The findings provide insights into the microfoundations of existing theories and suggest areas for theory refinement.     

Implementing International Human Rights Law at Home: Domestic Politics and the European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) boasts one of the strongest oversight systems in international human rights law, but implementing the ECtHR??s rulings is an inherently domestic and political process. This article begins to bridge the gap between the Court in Strasbourg and the domestic process of implementing the Court??s rulings by looking at the domestic institutions and politics that surround the execution of the ECtHR??s judgments. Using case studies from the UK and Russia, this article identifies two factors that are critical for the domestic implementation of the Court??s rulings: strong domestic, democratic institutions dedicated to implementing the ECtHR??s judgments and an overarching sense of responsibility to set a good example at home and abroad for respecting human rights and the rule of law. This article concludes with a discussion of the steps necessary to facilitate better implementation of the ECtHR??s rulings.     

International Best Practice and the Constitution,Democracy and Rights Commission

The UK government has pledged to establish a Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission. This body will have a wide remit to recommend potentially sweeping constitutional change. This article draws on international experience and best practice to outline how the commission might best organise the process to produce proposals which are widely supported, fit for purpose, and durable. We argue that to achieve these goals the commission’s organisation should reflect three key principles: impartiality, expertise, and public participation. This would reflect international best practice and build on recent domestic developments. We argue that these principles can best be achieved if the commission works through a citizens’ assembly that combines members of the public with party politicians. This would be a new departure for the UK, but a necessary one given the scale of the government’s constitutional reform agenda, and its stated goal of restoring public trust in politics.     

Foreign Aid,Human Rights,and Democracy Promotion: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Does foreign aid improve human rights and democracy? We help arbitrate the debate over this question by leveraging a novel source of exogeneity: the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. We find that when a country's former colonizer holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union during the budget‐making process, the country is allocated considerably more foreign aid than are countries whose former colonizer does not hold the presidency. Using instrumental variables estimation, we demonstrate that this aid has positive effects on human rights and democracy, although the effects are short‐lived after the shock to aid dissipates. We adduce the timing of events, qualitative evidence, and theoretical insights to argue that the conditionality associated with an increased aid commitment is responsible for the positive effects in the domains of human rights and democracy.     

Norms and Human Rights in International Relations

The three volumes on human rights reviewed here constitute the first wave of in-depth case studies of human rights from a constructivist approach in international relations. By acknowledging the theoretical contributions of these works, identifying their shortcomings and engaging in critiques of the authors' conceptions of identity and norms, this article provides direction for future studies on human rights through the constructivist framework.
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Thomas, D. C. (2001) The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism . Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.