Disregard for Security: The Human Rights Movement and 9/11

ABSTRACT

International human rights NGOs have warned that human rights have been threatened since September 11. However, the matter is complicated since what is involved is in reality a relationship between two concepts: human rights and security against terrorism. This article demonstrates that there is a tendency for international human rights NGOs to brush aside questions on security against terrorism. NGOs have stipulated that human rights values should be superior, or they have maintained, but failed to show, that there is no goal conflict between security and human rights—even that human rights fulfil a considerable instrumental function with respect to freedom from terrorism.     

Two sides of the same coin: can campaigns generate support for both human rights and retributive violence?

ABSTRACT

Do framing strategies that are effective at encouraging pro-social behavior, such as participation in human rights campaigns, also mobilize support for violence within the same subjects? We use an experimental research design to examine individuals’ reactions to personal, humanizing narratives about past victimization. Participants are randomly assigned to one of eight treatment groups, which variously highlighted the humanity of the subject, the intensity of the past violence, and/or an evocative photograph of the subject that underscores her loss and vulnerability. We expect narratives that emphasize the subject’s humanity will encourage the audience to see the subject as innocent and as a victim, but also to feel angry about her experience. As a result, individuals will be more likely to defend the subject’s human rights, and to condone her use of retributive violence. We find that humanizing narratives lead respondents to simultaneously support a human rights appeal on the subject’s behalf and her use of retributive violence. Perceiving the subject in the narrative as innocent or as a victim mediates these effects, but anger often does not.     

Evaluating the influence of international norms and shaming on state respect for rights: an audit experiment with foreign embassies

ABSTRACT

How do international norms affect respect for human rights? We report the results of an audit experiment with foreign missions that investigates the extent to which state agents observe international norms and react to the potential of international shaming. Our experiment involved emailing 669 foreign diplomatic missions in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom with requests to contact domestic prisoners. According to the United Nations, prisoners have the right for individuals to contact them. We randomly varied (1) whether we reminded embassies about the existence of an international norm permitting prisoner contact and (2) whether the putative email sender is associated with a fictitious human rights organization and, thereby, has the capacity to shame missions through naming and shaming for violating this norm. We find strong evidence for the positive effect of international norms on state respect for human rights. Contra to our expectations, though, we find that the potential of international shaming does not increase the probability of state compliance. The positive effect of the norms cue disappears when it is coupled with the shaming cue, suggesting that shaming might have a ‘backfire’ effect.     

The Security Imperative in Counterterror Operations: The Israeli Fight Against Suicidal Terror

ABSTRACT

Israel has had a long tradition of fighting international and Palestinian terror. This article looks at how Israel counterterrorism strategy and tactics have developed since the establishment of the State in 1948. By initially providing a working definition of terrorism, the article then goes to show how Israel has sought to defend itself from different Palestinian terror tactics. This article shows how Israeli security forces have struggled safeguarding, and sometimes disregarded Palestinian human rights. This article concludes by arguing that given the responsibility of democratic governments of defending their citizens from imminent terror attacks, such governments often find themselves paradoxically violating human rights. Despite attempts to reduce such human rights abuses, governments will never do so at the expense of their own security.     

Explaining Costly International Institutions: Persuasion and Enforceable Human Rights Norms

Why do states create enforceable international human rights norms that empower third parties to prevent and sanction domestic human rights abuses? Recent theories suggest that international institutions are shaped not only by power and interests but also by the content of arguments during intensive communication and argumentation processes. Moving beyond the simple notion that "communication matters," I argue that states are likely to be persuaded by arguments that draw on widespread taken-for-granted norms, in particular, prohibitions on bodily harm, the importance of precedent in decision making, and the link between cooperation and progress. This model extends previous theories by specifying mechanisms and scope conditions for international change through persuasion. I illustrate the argument by examining the convention against torture, a costly international institution that allows domestic courts to prosecute crimes that occur in the territory of other states (universal jurisdiction). Because of its enforcement mechanisms, the torture convention poses a difficult case for theories explaining international institutions. If persuasion models can explain even costly institutions, they should be more widely considered as explanations for all kinds of international institutions.     

From Media Attention to Negotiated Peace: Human Rights Reporting and Civil War Duration

Violations of human rights in the context of a conflict have in recent years received an increasing amount of attention from the international media. Yet how such media attention influences conflict remains understudied and, a priori, uncertain. On the one hand, media coverage of human rights abuses may constitute “naming and shaming” that might temper hostilities. On the other hand, such coverage might spark intransigence and complicate negotiations among conflicting parties, thereby hindering rather than hastening peace. This article tries to adjudicate among these and other possibilities by exploring how media reporting on human rights abuses influences the development of conflicts. The analysis reveals that such reporting is associated with shorter conflicts and negotiated agreements between fighting parties.     

International conflict,military rule,and violent authoritarian breakdown

ABSTRACT

Why do some transitions of power from military rule occur violently while others do not? What effect, if any, does the international security environment have on how violent breakdowns of authoritarian rule are? I argue a conflict-prone security environment ameliorates the commitment problem by ensuring an influential role for the military out of power. Therefore, when facing a domestic crisis in a threatening security environment, military leaders are more likely to peacefully cede power rather than wield violent measures to stay in office. Perhaps counter-intuitively, international conflicts thus lead to transitions of power from military rule that minimize violence and human costs. International conflicts do not have this moderating effect on other types of authoritarian rule.     

The Company You Keep: International Socialization and the Diffusion of Human Rights Norms

Does membership in Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) affect states' human rights behavior? One might expect IGOs with a specific human rights mandate, like the International Labour Organization or the Council of Europe, to have a positive effect on the human rights practices of their member states. But what about other sorts of IGOs, particularly those with no direct connection to human rights issues? This study employs cross-national data on abuses of "physical integrity rights" for 137 countries over the period 1982–2000 to test the hypothesis that IGOs can promote the diffusion of human rights norms by providing venues for interstate socialization. Recent empirical work on IGOs has suggested that this sort of socialization effect can play an important role in promoting democracy and can also lead to a more general convergence among states' interests. The results presented here suggest that IGOs can have a surprisingly powerful influence on states' human rights practices as a result of this process.     

The United Nations and Terrorism: Rethinking Legal Tensions Between National Security, Human Rights, and Civil Liberties

As the international community responds to the September 11 attacks and the general war on terrorism, member states in the United Nations (UN) must continue to address the balance between the rights of the individual and the security of the state. This study highlights the various roles that the UN plays in combating transnational terrorism through norm setting, codification of human rights law, as well as the drafting and effective implementation of 12 key multilateral agreements aimed at counter-terrorism. In these ways, the UN provides direction and guidance for implementing human rights rules and the ways in which they should be enforced. Even so, national governments must make these rules work. In a system of sovereign states, the role of the UN organization in checking or reversing these human rights abuses remains severely limited and largely dependent upon the political will of the member states. As a consequence, part of the price paid for protecting national security against threats posed by terrorism may well be the curtailment of some human rights and civil liberties within the liberal democratic state.     

The Fundamental Role of International (Criminal) Law in the War in Ukraine

The repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are reverberating around the world. The multilateral and coordinated response of the international community to Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine was immediate and has been waged on multiple fronts. While the world’s major powers are focused on the best strategies to face the ongoing conflict, international humanitarian law and human rights law are violated every day in Ukraine. Innocent civilians are tortured, killed, or obliged to leave their city or country to avoid the worst atrocities, while civilian buildings and infrastructure are destroyed. This article examines the most relevant decisions adopted at the international level and identifies possible solutions to prosecute and punish international crimes perpetrated in Ukraine. International (criminal) law and cooperation between states and international organizations will play a crucial role in the fight against impunity for those responsible for the worst atrocities against the Ukrainian population.     

On our terms! How domestic elites localised the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala

Abstract

In summer 2004, an UN-sponsored international rule of law commission based on an initiative of the Guatemalan human rights community was rejected by Guatemalan political elites. In 2007, a new version, the International Commission against Impunity (CICIG), was approved by the Guatemalan Congress and has since been active in the country, supporting the modernisation of the Guatemalan judicial system and the investigation and prosecution of criminal networks. The CICIG has been hailed as part of a new generation of rule of law promotion that addresses the problems of post-conflict states. How did this change in elite support come about? Neither increased pressure from the international community nor changes in the elite groups in power can fully explain this shift. Rather, Guatemalan elites actively reshaped the commission; in addition, the human rights community reframed it to better fit the risk perceptions of the general public.     

Democratization and Transitional Justice

Any country which attempts to establish accountability for past abuses of human rights during the process of democratization faces political, judicial, and ethical problems. With regard to politics, the question of which transitional justice measures are appropriate, functional, and feasible has to be decided for every individual case. A judicial approach has to decide which judicial standards to apply and how to justify prosecution. Finally, the ethical dilemmas of dealing with historical injustices have to be understood. There are no ready-made concepts to define guilt and justice. In many cases it is even difficult to tell the victims from the perpetrators. This study examines the different strategies subsumed under the term ‘transitional justice’ used by emerging democracies to deal with a legacy of human rights abuses. It explores the problems and challenges posed by different mechanisms of reconciliation and societal reintegration. While existing analyses of the contribution that transitional justice measures make to the process of social re-integration stress the importance of consensus among citizens and social groups for the emergence of trust and solidarity, this study suggests also thinking about how conflicts over competing ‘truths’ can help to build social capital and reconciliation. Noting a global diffusion of international legal norms, which means at least formal universal acceptance of basic rights and judicial procedures, it is argued that international justice cannot be a substitute for transitional justice measures taken by the domestic regime itself.     

Democracy and Human Rights in the Mexican States: Elections or Social Capital?

Why does the relationship between a government and its citizens deteriorate to violence? Large-N cross-national quantitative analyses of human rights violations have found an inverse relationship between democracy and violations. These analyses, however, have not been able to address the central finding of an influential subnational analysis of democracy that stresses the importance of a single dimension of democracy, social capital. In this article we combine these two streams of research with fresh data from the Mexican states to investigate how and why democracy inhibits violations. Theoretically, we connect a policy interest in protecting human rights to politicians' office-seeking goals and to the level of social capital. Empirically, our data allow us to disentangle two principal components of democracy, elections and social capital, and include important control variables, notably ethnic diversity, which have been largely left out of the cross-national analyses. Our central finding is that the electoral components rather than social capital produce important consequences for the protection of citizens' human rights.     

Poverty reduction and violence against women: exploring links,assessing impact

In 1993 the international community acknowledged for the first time that violence against women (VAW) is a human rights issue, while VAW is also increasingly recognised both as a global public health issue and a barrier to sustainable development. However, even where they are committed to reducing VAW through their programmes and advocacy activities, development practitioners are sometimes unsure about where this fits into the poverty‐reduction agenda. This article tries to situate VAW in the poverty discourse, drawing from a range of documentary sources to outline the conceptual links between VAW, poverty, and human development. It then goes on to look at issues surrounding the impact assessment of programmes aimed at reducing VAW, and offers examples of how specific programmes have been evaluated.     

Wrestling with Another Human Being: The Merits of a Messy,Power-Laden Pacifism

ABSTRACT

As one of many scholars who have situated their research in terms of nonviolence (a mode of action) rather than pacifism (a philosophical position), I ask, what do we gain instead by adopting an explicitly pacifist stance, especially as a response to forms of violent extremism? First, I respond to three common dismissals of pacifism, interrogating the misguided assumptions about violence/nonviolence upon which they depend. Second, exploring recent violent encounters between white nationalist and antifa activists in the US, as well as insights from Ruddick’s “maternal thinking,” I argue that taking a principled stance against collective violence (1) has practical utility, including a protective effect, (2) forces us to wrestle with the humanity of our adversaries and our inability to ever fully control them, and (3) enables radical inclusion by requiring sustained attention to difference but also resistance to the forms of injustice and oppression this “difference” might entail. The pacifism that emerges here is messy and power laden, demanding that we continually wrestle not only with one another but with the tensions inherent in human interaction, difference, and conflict.     

Coordinating Transitional Justice

Conflict resolution professionals sometimes differ from human rights professionals about the best approaches to transitional justice, particularly with regard to the scope, conditions, and timing of possible amnesties from prosecution for perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses. When human rights and conflict resolution professionals work at cross‐purposes, they may work less effectively to end conflict, abuses, and crimes, and to implement peace accords. A consensus among conflict resolution and human rights scholars about which legal norms should govern post‐conflict amnesty programs appears to be developing. Against this emerging legal framework, human rights and conflict resolution professionals should, I argue, develop processes for working together more effectively in the design and implementation of context‐sensitive approaches to transitional justice. These process principles should address the entire conflict period, from escalation through resolution to post‐conflict reconstruction. In this article, I describe a tentative, general framework for coordinating the development of transitional justice programs. This proposed framework is intended to stimulate and guide discussion of these issues among conflict resolution and human rights professionals and scholars.     

Responsibility to Protect in the Age of Global Terror: A Methodological Reassessment

Abstract

Ten years after its formal adoption, the R2P doctrine remains an incomplete project in a world of continuing conflicts now aggravated by the existential threat of global terrorism. The debate on the permissibility of military action to stop mass atrocities when authorisation to use force is not forthcoming from the Security Council has produced only a plurality of conflicting theories but hardly any progress at the normative level. A two-pronged approach could be used to consolidate R2P as a doctrine fully integrated into the corpus of international law. The first prong requires the revamping of the largely neglected Article 48 of the ILC Draft on State Responsibility; the second involves using R2P as a platform to initiate a reform of customary international law to make it more consistent with elementary principles of justice and universal human rights.     

Democracy,human rights,and U.S.‐Africa trade

The nexus of economic and political relations is a central issue in international relations, and the influence of political liberalization upon trade ties lies at the center of much liberal theory. However, many facets of the empirical linkage between political liberalization—including democratization and the respect for human rights—and trade remain uninvestigated. Examining the case of U.S.‐Africa trade, this study considers two unexplored facets of these political determinants of trade: (1) the role of human rights conditions, and (2) the robustness of the relationship between democracy, human rights, and trade across a subset of vertical dyads. Using a gravity model to assess trade patterns, we find that neither democracy nor human rights conditions has a significant impact upon U.S. trade to Africa.     

Repression of the Human Right to Personal Integrity Revisited: A Global Cross-National Study Covering the Years 1976–1993

Here we seek to build on our earlier research (Poe and Tate, 1994) by re-testing similar models on a data set covering a much longer time span; the period from 1976 to 1993. Several of our findings differ from those of our earlier work. Here we find statistical evidence that military regimes lead to somewhat greater human rights abuse, defined in terms of violations of personal integrity, once democracy and a host of other factors are controlled. Further, we find that countries that have experienced British colonial influence tend to have relatively fewer abuses of personal integrity rights than others. Finally, our results suggest that leftist countries are actually less repressive of these basic human rights than non-leftist countries. Consistent with the Poe and Tate (1994) study, however, we find that past levels of repression, democracy, population size, economic development, and international and civil wars exercise statistically significant and substantively important impacts on personal integrity abuse.