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Rev Int Organ (2015) 10:489512
DOI 10.1007/s11558-015-9213-0
Published online: 28 February 2015# The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract Although the reporting process under UN human rights treaties is considered one of the most important universal mechanisms to monitor the implementation of human rights, its actual domestic effects have hardly been studied. This is surprising in the light of the rather extensive work involved and resources spent on the reporting process by states and UN human rights treaty bodies. This article attempts to fill the scholarly neglect by examining the effectiveness of this process in three countries, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Finland. It also explores some more general conceptual, theoretical and methodological issues with respect to the definition and measurement of effectiveness of international (human rights) standards at the domestic level. The empirical results, which are based on extensive document analysis as well as 175 interviews, are used to test two hypotheses based on domestic and transnational mobilization as well as reputational and legitimacy-based explanations. The article especially finds support for the liberalist mobilization thesis, while only limited support is found for reputational and legitimacy-based explanations, at least in established liberal democracies.
Keywords Effectiveness . International monitoring . Human rights . Domestic mobilization . Legitimacy. Reputation
JEL Classification F53 . K410
1 Introduction
One of most well-known puzzles in human rights research has been the question as to whether ratification of human rights treaties has any effect on state behavior. While
J. Krommendijk (*)
Radboud University, Montessorilaan 10, Room 02.029, Postbus 9049, 6500 KK Nijmegen, The Netherlandse-mail: [email protected]
J. Krommendijke-mail: [email protected]
The domestic effectiveness of international human rights monitoring in established democracies. The caseof the UN human rights treaty bodies
Jasper Krommendijk
490 J. Krommendijk
some studies found that treaties have hardly any positive effect and sometimes even a negative effect (Hathaway 2002; Neumayer 2005; Hill 2010), others actually found some improvements (Simmons 2009; Lupu 2013; Hafner-Burton 2013). In addition to this burgeoning literature on Bfirst order compliance^ with treaties, more attention has recently been paid to so-called Bsecond-order compliance,^ the observance of the decisions and judgments of courts and committees monitoring international treaties (Fisher 1981). Especially the judgments of the regional human rights courts, such as the...