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This article examines whether the content of the International Human Rights Covenants and the costs associated with their ratification influence the decision of countries to join. The author evaluates three theoretical perspectives-rationalism, world polity institutionalism, and the clash of civilizations-with data for more than 130 countries between 1966 and 1999. Rationalists contend that treaty ratification is tightly coupled with internal sovereignty arrangements, human rights practices, and ideological commitments, all of which become more important as treaty enforcement strengthens. World polity institutionalists expect ratification to be loosely coupled with a country's conduct or its political, ideological, or cultural commitments, although this gap narrows as compliance is more effectively enforced. A civilizations approach predicts tight coupling between ratification and cultural values, regardless of the mechanisms in place for enforcing compliance. Results lend partial support to rationalism and world polity theory, whereas the clash of civilizations thesis is much less successful in accounting for patterns of ratification. Furthermore, the costs of ratifying a treaty, considered in terms of its surveillance and enforcement provisions, influence rates of accession more than the specific rights a treaty protects.
In the aftermath of World War II, human rights rapidly became a core principle of international society. Indeed, the Covenant of the League of Nations (1924) made no mention of "human rights" per se, but the United Nations (U.N.) Charter adopted only two decades later references the term seven times, including the Preamble (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Skrentny 2002). Anchoring the human rights regime (Donnelly 1986; Krasner 1982) are the two human rights covenants adopted in 1966: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (hereafter, "economic rights covenant") and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (henceforth, "political rights covenant"), known collectively as the International Human Rights Covenants. As formal international treaties, these covenants are binding on countries that ratify them, and both establish routine procedures for monitoring compliance.
Many observers have discussed the tension between human rights and another fundamental principle of global society: national sovereignty (Donnelly 1986; Hathaway 2003; Moravcsik 2000; Sikkink 1993a, 1993b). By now it is axiomatic that states-or more concretely, the rulers who control state institutions (Krasner 1999)-value and jealously guard their sovereignty.1 However, the consolidation and increasing penetration of the human rights regime...