Mark Sachleben - Human Rights Treaties: Considering Patterns of Participation, 1948-2000

STUDIES IN
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Edited by
Charles MacDonald
Florida International University

A ROUTLEDGE SERIES

CHARLES MACDONALD, General Editor

PROMOTING WOMEN'S RIGHTS
The Politics of Gender in the European Union
Chrystalla A. Ellina

TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY AND TURKISH IDENTITY
A Constructivist Approach Ycel Bozdaliolu

ORGANIZING THE WORLD
The United States and Regional Cooperation in Asia and Europe
Galia Press-Barnathan

HUMAN RIGHTS IN CUBA, EL SALVADOR AND NICARAGUA
A Sociological Perspective on Human Rights Abuse
Mayra Gmez

NEGOTIATING THE ARCTIC
The Construction of an International Region
E. C. H. Keskitalo

THE COMMON FISHERIES POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
A Study in Integrative and Distributive Bargaining
Eugnia da Conceio-Heldt

MALAYSIA AND THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Globalization, Knowledge Transfers and Postcolonial Dilemmas
Vanessa C. M. Chio

INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL TREATIES AND STATE BEHAVIOR
Factors Influencing Cooperation
Denise K. DeGarmo

POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN THE CARIBBEAN BASIN
Constructing a Theory to Combat Corruption
Michael W. Collier

INTERNATIONAL ELECTION MONITORING, SOVEREIGNTY, AND THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE IDEA
The Emergence of an International Norm
Arturo Santa-Cruz

HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES
Considering Patterns of Participation, 19482000
Mark Sachleben

HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES

Considering Patterns of Participation, 19482000

Mark Sachleben

First published 2006 by Routledge

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright 2006 Taylor & Francis

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ISBN: 9780415974462 (hbk)

Library of Congress Card Number 2005022787

Chapter One
Introduction

Chapter Two
Motivations for Participating in Human Rights Treaties

Chapter Three
The Provisions of the Human Rights Treaties

Chapter Four
Quantitative Variables and Human Rights Treaties

Chapter Five
The Role of Reservations in Human Rights Treaties

Chapter Six
Theoretical Bases for Human Rights Treaties

Chapter Seven
Conclusion

Appendix A
A Summary of Reservations Made to Each Treaty

Appendix B
A List of All UN Members and the Number of Human Rights Treaties They Participated in as of December 31, 2000

As with any such project, there were many people who offered a great deal of help along the way. Though several are unnamed, I thank each of them sincerely. I would like to particularly acknowledge my dissertation advisor, Dr. William Jackson, and my dissertation committee, Dr. William Hazleton, Dr. Susan Kay, and Dr. Jeffrey Kimball. My appreciation as well goes to Dr. Charles MacDonald, who offered very good insights and suggestions. Finally, I want to thank Ben Holtzman and everyone at Taylor & Francis for guiding me through the process of publication.

If the human rights project is an outgrowth of liberal thought, it is reasonable to expect that those states that are the byproduct of liberal ideology (democracies) have a better record of ratifying multilateral human rights treaties than non-liberal states. It seems logical to assume that states which embrace an ideology of civil and political rights, freedom from arbitrary punishment and equality before the law would seek to institutionalize those ideals in the international system. Indeed, many scholars have made this supposition. Authors such as Gary Bass (2000) have argued that liberal states seek to perpetuate their liberal ideas in the international system. Bass argues that liberal states operate in the international community by the same rules by which they operate in a domestic setting (Bass, 2000:18 ). Yet despite the United States not being a leader in the procurement of rights in treaty form, the standard-setting project continues unabated and may have even sped up in the last few decades. On the other hand, there are some states that seem quite willing to pursue international human rights treaties and even eager to pursue them. How should we understand this? If the most powerful liberal state is not leading the standard setting project, what states are and why?

Since it is difficult to understand the exact motivations of states, it is difficult to speculate why they may or may not choose to participate in human rights treaties. In fact, there could be a myriad and overlapping reasons why they choose to participate or not to participate in human rights treaties. We already know that the United States, arguably the most powerful democratic country, does not participate in several of the more prominent treaties. What states lead the international effort to procure international human rights treaties and can we make any generalizations about these states? What theories in the literature of international relations might help explain the evidence presented? This book seeks to shed light on this discussion.

The plan of this book is straightforward: reviews the scholarly literature on why countries choose to participate in human rights treaties. The third chapter examines the specific treaties in the study. These short reviews of each treaty will discuss the main points. To decide which treaties are to be considered in the study, the human rights treaties that states were invited to ratify in Kofi Annans report, We The Peoples: The Role of the Untied Nations in the 21st Century, are examined. In addition to these thirteen human rights treaties, two other treaties (the Refugee Convention and the Statute of the International Criminal Court) with important links to human rights development are also considered.

In order to set up the research, will address the basic research question and establish the definition of terms for the study. The chapter will explore how the delineation between democracies and non-democracies has been made in other studies and justify the parameters of the database used in this study. A discussion of which states and which variables were collected in the database will be included with a discussion of the general debate about the connection between democracies and non-democracies. This chapter will also explore the participation rates of countries and their relationship to different variables over the course of the length of the study. The differences in participation rates between current democracies and non-democracies will be examined. Also considered is which type of regimes was in power at the time a state became a party to the treaties. In order to further explore which countries are leaders, a calculation of how long countries take to ratify or become a state party will also be determined.