Signaling commitments,making concessions: Democratization and state ratification of international human rights treaties,1966

Abstract

How is the establishment of the international human rights regime possible in the first place? Bringing together theories from international law, political science, and sociology, I revisit the argument that global efforts to institutionalize human rights into international law are mainly driven by states undergoing democratization. Political democratization is crucial to the creation of the international human rights regime, because it generates “commitment” and “concession” mechanisms that motivate states to support human rights treaties. Analyzed by Cox event history models, the data on state ratification of the core United Nations human rights treaties from 1966 through 2006 are consistent with this argument. Improvement in human rights and increased political competition do significantly increase the rate of state ratification of human rights treaties. The ratification-promoting effect of democratization also operates in an immediate fashion. Overall, this study provides empirical support for the dynamic state-oriented explanation for global legalization of human rights and suggests a close connection between global democratization waves and the establishment of the human rights regime.

Keywords

Democratization event history model human rights human rights treaty

Introduction

Since World War II, human rights have rapidly evolved into a key principle of the international community. This global institutionalization of human rights has largely been promoted by a wide array of international treaties within the United Nations (UN) system (Buergenthal, 1997, 2006; Donnelly, 1986, 2003; Forsythe, 1991, 2006). The UN Charter in 1945 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 ushered in global efforts to institutionalize human rights into international treaties. These treaties are designed to protect and promote human rights and have biding legal effect on ratifying countries. With more and more countries ratifying them, these multilateral treaties constitute the foundation of the international human rights regime.

International regimes are usually defined as “systems of norms and decision-making procedures accepted by states as binding in a particular issue area” (Donnelly, 2003: 127; Krasner, 1982). States accept certain international normative or procedural constraints as legitimate, and thus replace part of their national sovereignty with international authority (Donnelly, 1986: 602). Today, the existence of the human rights regime is widely taken for granted, but actually it remains a puzzle why sovereign states are willing to voluntarily join human rights treaties. There has been persistent tension between human rights and another fundamental international principle—national sovereignty, that is, a state’s ability to exclude external actors from its internal affairs (Jackson, 1999; Krasner, 1999). Under the human rights regime, the state’s treatment of its own citizens becomes a target of external scrutiny and even draws international intervention in some cases.

This puzzle about state ratification of human rights treaties is summarized by this quote: “Why do states give us these whips to flagellate themselves with?” (Clark, 2001: 4; Simmons, 2009: 57). This puzzle is worth close attention because its answer sheds light on the question of how the establishment of the international human rights regime is possible in the first place. Without ratification of human rights treaties by so many states, the regime would not be established, let alone evolve into its current taken-for-granted status. The gradual nature of the ratification process adds more layers to this puzzle. Although today more and more states have participated in human rights treaties, they do not all ratify these treaties at the same time and some ratify faster than others. What states are more likely to support the legalization of human rights and why? Why do some states commit sooner than others?

A few theories have tried to explain this puzzle and have identified many factors that affect rates of treaty ratification among states. These theories straddle international law, political science, and sociology. A dynamic state-oriented approach is worth special attention. It focuses on changes in domestic political institutions. According to this argument, we should avoid viewing treaty ratification as a stand-alone event or an independent defining moment. Instead, more attention should be given to the dynamics in domestic politics prior to treaty ratification.

Building on several existing theories (Elster, 1979; Moravcsik, 2000; Schelling, 1966; Simmons, 2009; Vreeland, 2008), I first introduce the dynamic argument that democratization is crucial to global institutionalization of human rights. Treaty ratification is better to be seen as a manifestation of institutional change within domestic politics and is closely connected to political transition of the state. Domestic politics of a democratizing state intensify its motivation to embrace human rights treaties voluntarily via the “commitment” and “concession” mechanisms. I then empirically test this argument with event history models, using a comprehensive dataset that covers state ratification of core UN human rights treaties from 1966 through 2006. I find that states undergoing political democratization are indeed more likely to ratify human rights treaties. Both the commitment and concession mechanisms are at work. This ratification-promoting effect occurs immediately after democratization and diminishes over time.

State ratification of human rights treaties

The construction of the international human rights regime originated from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which established the contour of internationally recognized human rights. International human rights treaties adopted later by the UN conferred legal form on human rights. Currently, there are nine core international human rights treaties (see Table 1), and all have entered into force as of 2011. In addition to these core human rights treaties, there are many other human rights instruments such as declarations, principles, guidelines, standard rules, and recommendations which have no binding legal effect. In contrast, these core treaties are legally binding for those states that ratify or accede to them.¹ They lay down legal obligations which states are supposed to respect. Each treaty also has its own monitoring committee, or treaty body.

Table 1.

Core UN human rights treaties.

Treaty name	Abbreviated name	Date adopted	Date entered into force	Monitoring body	State parties (July 2010)
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination	ICERD	21 December 1965	4 January 1969	Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination	173
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights	ICCPR	16 December 1966	23 March 1976	Human Rights Committee	166
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights	ICESCR	16 December 1966	3 January 1976	Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights	160
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women	CEDAW	18 December 1979	3 September 1981	Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women	186
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment	CAT	10 December 1984	26 June 1987	Committee against Torture	147
Convention on the Rights of the Child	CRC	20 November 1989	2 September 1990	Committee on the Rights of the Child	193
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families	ICRMW	18 December 1990	1 July 2003	Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families	43
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities	CRPD	13 December 2006	3 May 2008	Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities	88
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance	ICED	20 December 2006	23 December 2010	Committee on Enforced Disappearances	19

UN: United Nations.

Wide acceptance of UN human rights treaties by states has been essential in the establishment of the human rights regime. Typically, a specified number of states must ratify a treaty for the treaty to enter into force. Hence, “understanding why some states ratify a treaty immediately after it opens for signature while others wait forty or more years to do so” (Hathaway, 2007: 589) is important for understanding the global institutionalization process of human rights after World War II.

Many studies have tried to explain why and when states ratify international human rights treaties (Cole, 2005; Goodliffe and Hawkins, 2006; Hafner-Burton, 2012; Hafner-Burton, Tsutsui, and Meyer, 2008; Moravcsik, 2000; Simmons, 2009; Vreeland, 2008; Wotipka and Tsutsui, 2008). The main puzzle that intrigues scholars is why states choose to restrict their sovereignty by committing to human rights treaties. The existing literature on this puzzle can be largely classified into three perspectives.² The first approach is based on a rationalist cost–benefit analysis of treaty ratification. The second approach, developed by neoinstitutional sociologists and constructivism-oriented political scientists, pays attention to normative pressure and demand for legitimacy in world politics. The third approach stresses state interests and motivations shaped by domestic political institutions.

Rationalist analysis: Small cost, big benefit

Theories emphasizing the cost side argue that treaty ratification is costless. In this view, the international human rights regime is unenforceable, as the treaties are weak in their implementation and largely rely on voluntary compliance (Donnelly, 1986). States ratify these treaties without the cost of changing their behavior (Hathaway, 2002). Nevertheless, scholars have increasingly realized that even with weak implementation capacity, treaty ratification is not costless, especially for states that do not have good human rights records (Goodman and Jinks, 2003; Simmons, 2009). Treaty ratification invites external scrutiny, weakens the state’s claim of the non-interference principle, and gives legitimacy for foreign countries and international organizations to intervene. It also promotes awareness of human rights among citizens. All these potential costs cast doubt on the costless nature of treaty ratification.

Other rationalist theories emphasize the benefit side of treaty ratification. They suggest that state sovereignty has always involved “organized hypocrisy,” and that it is used as a bargaining chip when states seek material gains on certain issues (Hochstetler et al., 2000; Krasner, 1999).³ Thus, states sacrifice part of their sovereignty by ratifying human rights treaties for material payoffs, such as foreign aid, foreign direct investment (FDI), international trade, and positive political relationships (Boockmann, 2001; Farber, 2002; Goodliffe and Hawkins, 2006; Hathaway, 2007). Recently, this rewards-for-ratification argument has been discredited, however. Economic aid, trade, and FDI are found to be unresponsive to treaty ratification (Neumayer, 2003; Nielsen and Simmons, 2009).

Global normative pressure and legitimacy-seeking

In contrast with the rationalist perspective, neoinstitutional and world-polity theory in sociology and constructivism-oriented theory in political science pay more attention to ideals and norms. At the normative level, because human rights are among the most legitimate principles in the international community, the normative value attached to the treaties generates social pressure on states to ratify. At the cognitive level, under the diffusing world culture that values human rights, states view treaty ratification as an appropriate or “normal” thing to do. There is also a so-called “norm cascade” among nation-states, a dynamic of imitation as the norm leaders socialize other states to become norm followers (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998: 895). These arguments are sometimes subsumed under the concept of “world culture,” that is, certain values, norms, and ideas of what constitute a legitimate state diffusing globally (Meyer et al., 1997; Wotipka and Ramirez, 2008). Through treaty ratification, states wish to present themselves as normal and legitimate actors to the broad international community and to their own citizens.

This perspective helps us understand why the concept of human rights has evolved into a seemingly irresistible world culture after World War II (see Elliott, 2007). It offers a convincing explanation for the emergence of human rights as a compelling world cultural phenomenon. However, more details are needed to supplement this perspective in order to better explain the gradual nature of the ratification process and cross-national variation in treaty ratification. Although human rights have become so authoritative that states now feel tremendous pressure to embrace them, the institutionalization process, such as the ratification of human rights treaties, has been both slow and gradual (Simmons, 2009). There is noticeable cross-national variation in treaty ratification. Some states ratify these treaties very quickly, whereas some do not ratify until many others have done so. Hence, in addition to global influences, we should also examine domestic institutions, as specific domestic political and social contexts create incentives that motivate states to react to the global idea of human rights in a certain way.

Domestic political institutions

To understand a state’s motives behind accepting human rights treaties and to explain cross-national variation in treaty ratification, the third perspective that focuses on domestic political institutions is more promising. It argues that over the past few decades, treaty ratification has largely been driven by specific state institutions. According to this approach, domestic political institutions shape states’ attitudes toward global norms, and variations in domestic structures lead to differing responses to external pressures (Katzenstein et al., 1998). Within this camp, however, conflicting theories abound. In particular, they generate disparate accounts regarding what type of political regime is more ready to embrace human rights treaties.⁴

On the one hand, democratic states have already adopted good human rights practices. Ratification of human rights treaties incurs very little extra cost for established democracies, so these states should ratify human rights treaties more quickly than others (Cole, 2005; Hathaway, 2002, 2003). Ideational theory, or the so-called “liberal constructivist” theory, comes to the same conclusion. It links support for international human rights treaties to domestic democracy and commitment of the “rule of law.” Democracies often tend to “externalize their domestic ideals” (Moravcsik, 2000: 223), and seek to extend their liberal values to other countries (Russett, 1993; Russett and Oneal, 2001). In comparison with their authoritarian counterparts, democratic states are more likely to promote human rights globally because they are consistent with the universal ideals to which they adhere. They are more willing to give legal form to human rights due to their tradition of the rule of law.

On the other hand, some theories argue that authoritarian states with poor human rights records ratify human rights treaties more quickly because they have greater need for legitimacy. Repressive governments perceive ratification of human rights treaties as “an easy way to deflect criticism about their domestic violations and improve their standing in the international community” (Hafner-Burton et al., 2008: 123). This argument is succinctly summarized by the concept of “hypocrisy paradox.” It refers to the institutional dynamics that encourage repressive states to “join international treaties in order to enhance their international legitimacy, even though they have no intention of following such agreements” (Smith and Wiest, 2005: 628). Hollyer and Rosendorff’s (2011) theory also contends that authoritarian states are more likely to join human rights treaties, but the reason is different. Authoritarian states use joining human rights treaties as a signal to domestic opposition groups of their willingness to employ repression to remain in power.

A dynamic perspective on treaty ratification

Although they debate whether it is democracy or autocracy that induces faster ratification, the theories above share a key commonality. They all see treaty ratification as an independent event, separated from broader changes in domestic politics. They treat state institutions as static, and unnecessarily limit their focus to identifying what particular regime type is more prone to treaty ratification. Actually, it would be more sensible to approach the question through a dynamic lens. Below, I synthesize new theoretical developments in the literature and bring in a dynamic approach that views political democratization as a crucial catalyst for ratification of human rights treaties. According to this approach, it is the change within political institutions, not a particular regime type, that induces treaty ratification. Specifically, states undergoing democratization are more likely to ratify human rights treaties. It is not the level of democracy but the change toward democracy that generates support for global institutionalization of human rights. Two major mechanisms in democratization bring about favorable conditions for treaty ratification. I call them the “commitment” and “concession” mechanisms, respectively.

The “commitment” mechanism

Ratification of human rights treaties can be used to solve commitment problems created by political democratization. Three interrelated theories explain this mechanism from slightly different perspectives, but they all suggest that democratizing states have the motivation to secure democratizing gains through committing to human rights treaties:

“Precommitment” Theory. The notion of precommitment, or self-restraint, originally articulated by Schelling (1966) and Elster (1979), explains “why and how individuals might wish to tie their hands at time t₁ in order to prevent themselves from doing things at time t₂ in the future” (Ratner, 2004: 83). Actors can often do better if they remove certain options from their future menu. This theory predicts enthusiastic embrace of human rights treaties by democratizing states. A democratizing state uses treaty ratification as a true precommitment (Ratner, 2004), in hopes of tying its hands to resist temptations to commit human rights abuses in the future. Moreover, in democratizing states, political actors must anticipate that their political rivals may soon control the reins of government. Political actors currently in power do not wish to suffer human rights abuses under the control of their opponents in the future. In this sense, this “precommitment” strategy is a rational choice to protect political actors in power themselves—“they often can only shut out their opponents by shutting themselves out too” (Moe, 1990: 125).

“Lock-In” Theory. Moravcsik (2000) pioneered the “lock-in” theory in his study of European human rights conventions. In democratizing countries and potentially unstable democracies, insecure actors hope to “lock-in” human rights by tying their countries to international treaties (Landman, 2005; Moravcsik, 2000). The treaties are useful in domestic politics to help sustain democratic momentum and lock in recent reform gains. The states undergoing democratization have “the greatest interest in further stabilizing the democratic political status quo against nondemocratic threat” (Moravcsik, 2000: 220). Moravcsik (2000) finds that the primary proponents of binding human rights commitments in postwar Europe were not governments based in long-established democracies or autocracies, but the governments of newly established democracies. This theory can be extended to regions beyond Europe.

“Credible Commitment” Theory. “Credible commitment” theory suggests that political groups often have difficulty cooperating in their interactions because they do not believe others will follow the agreed or specified rules (Elster, 1979; Fearon, 1997; North, 1993; Shepsle, 1991; Simmons and Danner, 2010). This lack of credibility stems from the fact that democratic institutions are newly established and thus are not fully trusted by all. Credibility within domestic audiences can be enhanced by joining international institutions. Treaty ratification acts as an implicit promise by all political groups that they respect newly improved human rights, and this promise is endowed credibility by ratification of international treaties.

The “concession” mechanism

“Political concession” theory offers another mechanism through which democratization leads to treaty ratification. In democratizing states where political power is becoming more fragmented and decentralized, more political groups are empowered to some extent. The state faces more pressure to adopt policies to co-opt support. Newly empowered groups can pressure the government to make concessions, and one concession the government can make is the gesture of entering into human rights treaties (Vreeland, 2008). Organized political groups benefit from this concession, which gives them both some degree of guarantee in human rights protection and legitimacy to advocate more rights. Case studies on various African and Latin American countries have shown that when political competition is legalized, domestic political groups often pressure the state to enter into international human rights treaties (Hawkins, 2002; Vreeland, 2008). In contrast, absolute authoritarian states that do not face such organized political pressure are reluctant to ratify human rights treaties. In the absence of political pressure, authoritarian states are unwilling to take any “risks” that may arise from ratifying human rights treaties. On the other hand, political groups in well-established democracies already have guaranteed human rights and thus see no need to pressure the state to ratify treaties. In comparison, democratizing states with intensified political competition face the strongest domestic pressure to ratify human rights treaties.

Hypotheses

Taken together, in comparison with well-established democracies or stable autocracies, states undergoing democratization tend to be more enthusiastic about global institutionalization of human rights. Democratization in political institutions intensifies states’ motives to ratify human rights treaties. Through treaty ratification, democratizing states wish to prevent future regression into previous repression, to make necessary political concessions to those newly empowered political forces, to lock in improved human rights achieved in democratization, and to render their commitment more credible to domestic audiences.

Hypothesis 1. States undergoing political democratization are more likely to ratify international human rights treaties.

Moreover, the commitment and concession mechanisms stress distinct aspects of democratization. I use two additional hypotheses to more closely examine these mechanisms. In the commitment mechanism, the ratification-promoting effect of democratization is related to improved human rights. Without improved human rights, the state would have nothing to “lock in” through treaty ratification. The more human rights improvement achieved by a democratizing state, the more eager it is to lock in these gains. If the commitment mechanism is at work, it is most likely to occur to states with human rights improvement.

Hypothesis 2. States experiencing improvement in human rights are more likely to ratify international human rights treaties.

In the concession mechanism, democratization promotes treaty ratification due to increased political competition. Intensified competition brings about both the need and the pressure for political compromise. Political compromise in the form of ratifying human rights treaties is often needed when multiple groups start competing for power. In democratizing countries, increased competition intensifies the pressure on the state to make political concessions including committing to international human rights treaties.

Hypothesis 3. States with increased political competition are more likely to ratify international human rights treaties.

Data and method

Data used for testing the hypotheses are assembled at yearly intervals for more than 140 countries from 1966 through 2006.⁵ As shown in Table 1, there are nine core human rights conventions altogether. The analysis here covers seven of them. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted in 2006 and entered into force in 2008, and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance was adopted in 2006 and entered into force in 2010, so they are excluded from the analysis. Ratification data were coded from UN (2010) Treaty Collection Database. The analysis uses event history models, which examine the rate at which a country ratifies international human rights treaties. I use “country-treaty” as the unit of analysis (e.g. the US–International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a unit), so each country actually becomes seven units since there are seven treaties. Nevertheless, I include another variable identifying the country, which I later use to adjust for clustering within countries in calculating robust standard errors. The data have well-defined time metrics and events—time is measured in years and the event is defined as treaty ratification. The choice of 1966 as the starting point is not arbitrary.⁶ The first core treaty, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, was adopted in December 1965 and opened for ratification in 1966.

Dependent variables

The dependent variable is defined as whether a country ratifies a particular treaty in a given year between 1966 and 2006. A country receives a score of 1 for a year when it ratifies a particular treaty in that year. Otherwise, it receives a value of 0.

Explanatory variables

Political democratization

Two types of democratization measures are created to test Hypothesis 1, incremental and fundamental democratization measures.

Incremental democratization measures

I draw on the Polity IV polity score that combines three essential components of institutionalized democracy: the competitiveness and openness of executive recruitment, the constraints on the chief executive, and the regulation and competitiveness of political participation (Marshall and Jaggers, 2009). This 21-point measure of a state’s democratic characteristics ranges from −10 (full autocracy) to +10 (full democracy), and a larger score indicates a more democratic regime. I calculate the annual change in a country’s polity score (Polity_t − Polity_t−1) as the measure of annual incremental democratization. Positive values indicate democratization and negative values suggest retrenchment of democracy, while a score of 0 implies regime stability. I also calculate the 3-year change in a country’s polity score (Polity_t − Polity_t−3) as another measure of democratization in a longer perspective (3-year incremental democratization).

Fundamental democratization measures

I also use data on state regimes from the Political and Economic Dataset, which was originally assembled by Alvarez, Cheibub, Limongi, and Przeworski (ACLP) in 1996, and has been updated by Cheibub and Gandhi since. The ACLP dataset distinguishes between democracies and autocracies, and the basic classification is dichotomous. A country is classified as a democracy if the executive and the legislature are filled through contested elections where more than one party has a chance of winning. Two dummy variables, annual fundamental democratization and 3-year fundamental democratization, are created to represent fundamental regime change from autocracy to democracy within the previous year or 3 years, respectively. For each variable, if a country experiences political transition from autocracy to democracy, it is coded as 1; otherwise it is coded as 0.

Improvement in human rights

This set of variables is used to test Hypothesis 2. I draw on two measures from the Freedom House Dataset, political rights and civil liberties. The measures of human rights produced by Freedom House have the most comprehensive coverage over time and across countries (Landman, 2004). Freedom House uses a standard checklist to code political rights and civil liberties based on press reports and various sources about state practices and then derives a scale that ranges from 1 (full protection) to 7 (full violation). I reversed the coding of the two scales so that higher values indicate better rights and liberties. Political rights are measured by three major components: free and fair electoral processes, political pluralism and free participation, and accountability and transparency of the government. Four main aspects of civil liberties are assessed: freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights.⁷ Similar to democratization measures, I generate two measures for political rights and civil liberties, each based on two time frames: annual improvement in political rights, 3-year improvement in political rights, annual improvement in civil liberties, and 3-year improvement in civil liberties.

Increase in political competition

This set of variables is for the test of Hypothesis 3. I use the indicator “competitiveness of political participation” from the Polity IV data. It is measured by the extent to which alternative preferences for policy and leadership can be pursued in the political arena. It is coded on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (repressed politics) to 5 (competitive politics), with a larger number indicating a higher level of political competition. I construct two measures based on two time frames: annual increase in political competition and 3-year increase in political competition.

Control variables

I control several variables that are potentially relevant to ratification of human rights treaties (Cole, 2005; Hafner-Burton et al., 2008; Hathaway, 2002, 2007; Simmons, 2009; Vreeland, 2008; Wotipka and Tsutsui, 2008). All control variables, except time-invariant variables, are lagged by 1 year to help establish time order and causal direction in the analysis.

Level of democracy

Existing studies argue that the level of democracy matters for treaty ratification. As discussed above, there are debates about whether it is a democracy or an autocracy that is more ready for treaty ratification. I use the Polity IV composite polity score, which ranges from −10 (full autocracy) to 10 (full democracy).

Economic development

It is argued that economically advanced countries are more concerned about human rights issues, so they are likely to ratify treaties quickly. However, it is also likely that less developed countries rush to ratification to avoid being marginalized in the institutionalization process. The notion of human rights implies that all human beings have the same rights and hold them equally, so less developed countries may support global legalization of human rights in hopes of establishing equality in the world order. Hence, economic development can have either a positive or a negative effect. I use the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in constant US dollars and take its logarithm to correct for its skewed distribution. Data are from the UN Common Database.

Human rights practices

Ratification may also be affected by human rights practices in a country. It is less costly for a state with a good human rights record to ratify treaties because the state does not need to change its behavior after ratification. It is also likely that a rights-violating state is more likely to ratify because ratification brings legitimacy and deflects criticism. No matter which mechanism is at work, human rights practices should be controlled. I use two conventional measures from the Freedom House Dataset, political rights and civil liberties. Higher values indicate better human rights.

Economic openness

I use the sum of exports and imports of goods and services as a share of the GDP as a proxy for economic openness. The higher the percentage, the more open a country is to the world economy. When a country is more integrated into the world economy, it is more exposed to global socialization and normative pressure. Trade data come from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Direction of Trade Statistics Dataset.

International organization linkages

A state’s number of memberships in intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) is controlled.⁸ It is a conventional proxy for a state’s embeddedness in the international community. The more embedded into the international community, the more likely a state is to comply with global norms. Data come from the Correlates of War IGO Dataset (Pevehouse et al., 2004).

Diffusion

To control the impact of diffusion and “norm cascade,” two variables, world diffusion and regional diffusion, are also controlled. They measure the cumulative number of countries in the world or in the region that had ratified the treaty as of the previous year, respectively. Countries are more likely to ratify a treaty when other countries in the world or in the region have ratified the treaty. Regions are defined by the UN macro region classification.

Civilization type

Civilizational membership is operationalized as a series of dummy variables designating each of the nine (plus “other”) civilizations identified by Huntington (1996). Western countries are argued to be more likely to ratify since human rights are often seen as a social norm constructed by Western culture. Data on civilization types come from Henderson (2004). The results from the models using a 10-civilization categorization do not differ substantively from those using the dichotomous measure (Western vs non-Western). To avoid clutter, I report the dichotomous measure in the tables.

World system position

World system position potentially affects a country’s likelihood of ratifying. It is likely that peripheral countries are under more pressure to ratify than core countries. It is also likely that core countries are more active in ratification in order to dominate the institutionalization process. I use a country’s trade as a proportion of the overall global trade as a continuous measure of world system position.⁹ A larger proportion indicates a higher position in the world system.

Legal tradition

According to Simmons (2009), in comparison with civil law or other law systems, common law systems raise the probability of unintended consequences from treaty ratification because judges can easily apply international treaties to create law through rulings. Thus, common law systems may delay treaty ratification. I include a dummy variable indicating whether a country has a common law system. Data are obtained from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, 2010) Factbook.

Historical contingency

To account for the historical contingent effect of Cold War politics (Wotipka and Tsutsui, 2008), I control a Cold War dummy variable. The period 1966–1989 is coded as 1, while the post–Cold War era of 1990–2006 is coded as 0.

Ratification dynamics

I control for the number of treaties that each country had already ratified by the previous year. It can have either a negative or a positive effect on treaty ratification. This control takes into account the real number of treaties available for ratification. If a state has already ratified some treaties, it will have fewer treaties left to ratify. In this sense, the number of treaties ratified may have a negative effect. Nevertheless, more treaties ratified can create momentum and make it easier for the state to ratify additional treaties. Thus, the number of treaties ratified may also have a positive effect.

Method

I use event history analysis to estimate the effects of various factors on a country’s likelihood of ratifying international human rights treaties. Event history analysis models the effects of explanatory variables on the rate at which units (in this case, nation-states) experience an event (treaty ratification) over time (Allison, 1984; Blossfeld et al., 2007; Box-Steffensmeier and Jones, 2004; Tuma and Hannan, 1984). It not only takes into account which countries ratify, but also examines differences in how quickly they ratify.

The event in the analysis is whether a country ratifies one of the seven treaties in a given year between 1966 and 2006. The onset of “risk,” or the possibility of ratifying, is the year that a particular treaty was adopted, or a country’s year of independence, whichever is later. All countries potentially belong to seven risk sets: one for each treaty. Here, it is possible to exit one risk set by ratifying one treaty but remain eligible for ratifying others.

Because there is no a priori justification for specifying the effect of time or duration on rates of ratification, I use the Cox proportional hazards model, which places no constraints on how the baseline hazard rate (here, the rate of ratification) changes over time. In this case, the Cox model is superior to other parametric event history models because it can estimate the effects of the covariates of interest without making assumptions about the particular form of the duration dependency (Blossfeld et al., 2007; Box-Steffensmeier and Jones, 2004). I use the stcox command in the Stata software (Release 10; StataCorp, 2007), with robust standard errors adjusted for clustering by country.

Results

Global trend in ratification of human rights treaties

I first present a general description of treaty ratification across the world. Each country has seven potential ratification opportunities. Altogether in the data, there are 1239 potential ratification opportunities, or 1239 episodes in the language of event history analysis. To display the trajectory of the ratification process, I use the Kaplan–Meier method to estimate the survivor function. The survivor function demonstrates the proportions of episodes that have not yet ended in treaty ratifications for every point in time. In Table 2, the first column shows the years in which at least one event takes place. From 1967 onward, there have been countries ratifying treaties every year. The number of the episodes remaining in the risk set is given in the second column. Not all treaties are ratified by all countries. By the end of 2006, there are still 285 episodes at risk. The number of events that occur in a given year is reported in the third column. The peak year for treaty ratification is 1991 (79 ratifications), which coincides with the peak of global democratization. This coincidence would be no surprise if the argument that democratization drives ratification proves to be true. The fourth column shows estimates of the survivor function. Treaty ratification is not universal, and as late as 2006, a proportion of 0.2776 of all opportunities to ratify treaties has not been taken.

Table 2.

The Kaplan–Meier survivor function of treaty ratification.

Year	Episodes	Ratification events	Survival proportion	Year	Episodes	Ratification events	Survival proportion
1967	1239	4	.9968	1987	912	28	.7135
1968	1235	12	.9871	1988	884	13	.7030
1969	1223	11	.9782	1989	871	15	.6909
1970	1212	15	.9661	1990	856	18	.6764
1971	1197	14	.9548	1991	838	79	.6126
1972	1183	17	.9411	1992	759	62	.5626
1973	1166	21	.9241	1993	697	57	.5165
1974	1145	7	.9185	1994	633	73	.4570
1975	1138	15	.9064	1995	560	39	.4252
1976	1123	16	.8935	1996	521	39	.3933
1977	1107	15	.8814	1997	482	23	.3746
1978	1092	13	.8709	1998	459	18	.3599
1979	1079	27	.8491	1999	441	14	.3484
1980	1052	15	.8370	2000	427	18	.3338
1981	1037	19	.8216	2001	409	14	.3223
1982	1018	27	.7998	2002	349	12	.3112
1983	991	23	.7813	2003	337	5	.3066
1984	968	19	.7659	2004	328	11	.2963
1985	949	17	.7522	2005	304	11	.2856
1986	932	20	.7361	2006	285	8	.2776

The estimated Kaplan–Meier survivor function is presented in the first panel of Figure 1. It visualizes the trend in the proportion of the treaties that have not been ratified over time. The bottom panel of Figure 1 is the smoothed curve of hazard rates over time, which shows the estimated rate of ratification at each time point.

Figure 1.

The Kaplan–Meier survivor curve and smoothed curve of hazard rates: treaty ratification, 1966–2006. (a) The Kaplan–Meier survivor curve, 1966–2006; (b) the smoothed hazard rate curve, 1966–2006.

Overall effect of political democratization

To examine how various national and global characteristics affect the rate of ratification, I estimate a series of event history models. First, I estimate a baseline model with the predictors commonly used in existing studies.¹⁰ The result is presented in Model 1 of Table 3. It is found that GDP per capita, civil liberties, international organization linkages, regional diffusion, world system status, common law system, and the number of previously ratified human rights treaties all significantly affect how quickly a state ratifies a human rights treaty. Less developed and peripheral countries ratify treaties faster. Countries with greater civil liberties and more IGO linkages also ratify more swiftly. Countries with common law systems ratify at a slower rate. In addition, the rate of ratification is positively influenced by the overall number of ratifications in the region and is negatively affected by the number of treaties already ratified. In contrast, economic openness, global diffusion, Western culture, and the Cold War period have no effects on treaty ratification.

Table 3.

Cox models of state ratification of human rights treaties: effects of democratization.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6	Model 7
Incremental democratization (previous year)		.041** (3.26)				.030* (2.01)
Incremental democratization (previous 3 years)			.031** (3.13)				.016* (2.19)
Fundamental democratization (previous year)				.468*** (4.16)		.266** (3.31)
Fundamental democratization (previous 3 years)					.401*** (3.65)		.337** (3.08)
GDP per capita (logged)	−.135** (−3.45)	−.130** (−3.32)	−.128** (−3.22)	−.132** (−3.38)	−.124** (−3.16)	−.129** (−3.29)	−.123** (−3.08)
Democracy	.009 (0.69)	.011 (0.88)	.008 (0.60)	.006 (0.51)	.003 (0.27)	.009 (0.73)	.010 (0.74)
Civil liberties	.200*** (3.58)	.184** (3.28)	.187** (3.20)	.186** (3.31)	.196*** (3.51)	.180** (3.19)	.189** (3.24)
Trade openness	−.353 (−1.93)	−.332 (−1.85)	−.366 (−1.90)	−.338 (−1.87)	−.326 (−1.81)	−.329 (−1.84)	−.356 (−1.85)
IGO linkages	.013** (2.84)	.013* (2.12)	.015** (2.67)	.013* (2.19)	.013* (2.31)	.013* (2.01)	.015* (2.33)
Regional diffusion	.016* (2.18)	.016* (2.14)	.007 (1.41)	.015* (2.20)	.016* (2.22)	.010* (2.17)	.004 (1.42)
Global diffusion	.009 (0.11)	.010 (0.07)	.002 (0.04)	.007 (0.08)	.004 (0.03)	.003 (0.02)	.001 (0.01)
Western culture	.177 (1.31)	.195 (1.47)	.169 (1.25)	.202 (1.78)	.192 (1.24)	.200 (1.28)	.165 (1.57)
World system position	−.446* (−2.32)	−.452* (−2.35)	−.504* (−2.50)	−.438* (−2.28)	−.420* (−2.18)	−.523* (−2.59)	−.493* (−2.45)
Common law system	−.173* (−2.01)	−.161 (−1.95)	−.109 (−1.20)	−.168 (−1.89)	−.171 (−1.93)	−.160 (−1.81)	−.116 (−1.29)
Cold War	−.002 (−0.28)	−.003 (−0.19)	−.001 (−0.09)	−.004 (−0.24)	−.001 (−0.08)	−.001 (−0.03)	−.001 (−0.01)
Cumulative ratifications	−.054* (−1.99)	−.056* (−2.07)	−.046 (−1.64)	−.053 (−1.95)	−.052 (−1.93)	−.055* (−2.04)	−.044 (−1.59)
Log likelihood	−3906.68	−3886.59	−3692.46	−3894.67	−3693.40	−3876.10	−3681.06
LR χ²	73.14***	81.65***	79.24***	81.41***	83.95***	82.64***	82.02***
Ratifications (n)	637	637	607	637	607	637	607
Yearly spells	1,6268	1,6268	1,5815	1,6268	1,5815	1,6268	1,5815

GDP: gross domestic product; IGO: intergovernmental organization; LR: likelihood ratio.

Numbers in parentheses are z-values calculated using robust standard errors; all time-varying control variables use a 1-year lag.

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

An important finding from Model 1 is that the democracy score has no significant effect on the rate of treaty ratification.¹¹ Hence, the attention to the effect of regime types or the level of democracy on treaty ratification in the existing literature is misplaced. This can be more clearly seen in Figure 2, in which the survivor functions for democratic and autocratic states are juxtaposed. Although the curve for democratic states is slightly lower, suggesting a faster ratification process, overall, the two curves are very close to each other over the whole period.

Figure 2.

The Kaplan–Meier survivor curve of treaty ratification: democratic states versus autocratic states, 1966–2006.

In contrast, the divergence between democratizing states and non-democratizing states is far more prominent. Figure 3 shows this divergence. The dichotomous fundamental democratization measure created from the ACLP data is used to classify all states into democratizing and non-democratizing subgroups. In general, states undergoing democratization, either in the previous year or in previous 3 years, ratify human rights treaties at a much faster rate than non-democratizing states. Consequently, the survivor curve of democratizing states drops more precipitously than that of non-democratizing states. To examine whether this divergence is truly due to democratization, I assess the effect of democratization in event history models.

Figure 3.

The Kaplan–Meier survivor curve of treaty ratification: democratizing states versus non-democratizing states, 1966–2006. (a) Democratization in the previous year; (b) democratization in the previous 3 years.

To test Hypothesis 1 regarding the effect of overall political democratization, various measures of democratization are added to the baseline Model 1. Estimated models are presented in Table 3 (from Model 2 onward). Model 1 is nested in these new models, so likelihood ratio tests can be conducted to compare these models with Model 1. The test results suggest significant improvement in the goodness of fit when democratization measures are added into the models.

Model 2 and Model 3 test the effect of democratization by including the incremental measures of democratization. The result from Model 2 shows that an increased level of democracy in the previous year significantly facilitates ratification of human rights treaties. A one-unit increase on the Polity IV democracy scale in the previous year raises the rate of ratification by 4.2% (e^.041−1), holding all other influences constant. The democratization measure in Model 3 examines the effect from a longer perspective, as it is possible that the effect of democratization may take a few years to manifest itself. The finding is similar to that in Model 2. One-unit democratization in the previous 3 years significantly increases the ratification rate by 3.2% (e^.031−1). Model 4 and Model 5 test the effect of more fundamental democratization—political transition of a state from autocracy to democracy. According to these models, fundamental democratization in the previous year significantly increases the rate of ratification by as much as 59.7% (e^.468−1), while fundamental democratization in the previous 3 years raises the rate by 49.4% (e^.401−1).

All four models confirm that political democratization intensifies the tendency of the state to ratify human rights treaties. Fundamental transition toward democracy has a particularly great impact on treaty ratification. Nevertheless, both incremental and fundamental democratization increase the rate of ratification. When the two are simultaneously included in the models (Model 6 and Model 7), their effects are both significant. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the effect of democratization in the previous year is greater than that in the previous 3 years.¹² The ratification-promoting effect of democratization often manifests itself immediately after democratization and may gradually lose its momentum later. The salience of the ratification-promoting effect diminishes over time.

Effect of improved human rights: The commitment mechanism

To test Hypothesis 2 regarding the effect of improved human rights, another six models are estimated. The results are presented in Table 4. Several measures of improvement in political rights and civil liberties are added to the baseline Model 1. I compare these new models with Model 1 using the likelihood ratio test, and the measures of human rights improvement all significantly improve the model fit. Model 8 and Model 9 show that improved political rights, either in the previous year or previous 3 years, significantly increase the rate of treaty ratification. Specifically, a one-unit increase on the Freedom House political rights scale in the previous year raises the rate of ratification by 11.5% (e^.109−1), while a one-unit improvement in the previous 3 years increases the rate by 11.1% (e^.106−1). Model 10 and Model 11 examine the effects of improved civil liberties on the rate of treaty ratification. Improvement of civil liberties also shows a significantly positive effect. A one-unit increase on the Freedom House civil liberties scale in the previous year lifts the ratification rate by 38.5% (e^.325−1), whereas a one-unit improvement in the previous 3 years increases the rate by 18.5% (e^.170−1).

Table 4.

Cox models of state ratification of human rights treaties: effects of human rights improvement.

	Model 8	Model 9	Model 10	Model 11	Model 12	Model 13
Political right improvement (previous year)	.109* (2.15)				.032* (2.09)
Political right improvement (previous 3 years)		.106** (2.95)				.039 (1.89)
Civil liberty improvement (previous year)			.325*** (4.64)		.340*** (4.25)
Civil liberty improvement (previous 3 years)				.170*** (3.85)		.141** (2.60)
GDP per capita (logged)	−.136*** (−3.49)	−.137** (−3.37)	−.147*** (−3.74)	−.137** (−3.37)	−.147*** (−3.74)	−.135** (−3.32)
Democracy	.004 (0.30)	.010 (0.75)	.001 (0.06)	.011 (0.80)	.002 (0.12)	−.011 (−0.83)
Civil liberties	.174** (3.01)	.207** (3.46)	.253*** (4.43)	.172** (2.83)	.262*** (4.25)	.175** (2.88)
Trade openness	−.346 (−1.92)	−.412 (−1.93)	−.356 (−1.87)	−.396 (−1.87)	−.358 (−1.78)	−.394 (−1.82)
IGO linkages	.013* (2.18)	.016** (2.98)	.013* (2.13)	.016** (2.96)	.013* (2.12)	.016** (2.99)
Regional diffusion	.016* (2.13)	.003 (0.37)	.014 (1.92)	.002 (0.22)	.014 (1.91)	.002 (0.19)
Global diffusion	.014 (0.05)	.012 (0.01)	.002 (0.01)	.003 (0.01)	.001 (0.01)	.001 (0.01)
Western culture	.195 (1.28)	.233 (1.46)	.182 (1.16)	.245 (1.52)	.180 (1.65)	.196 (1.52)
World system position	−.444* (−2.31)	−.494* (−2.47)	−.447* (−2.34)	−.491* (−2.45)	−.447* (−2.34)	−.488* (−2.44)
Common law system	−.164 (−1.86)	−.121 (−1.32)	−.158 (−1.78)	−.116 (−1.27)	−.159 (−1.79)	−.112 (−1.22)
Cold War	−.004 (−0.13)	−.001 (−0.01)	−.005 (−0.01)	−.006 (−0.01)	−.001 (−0.01)	−.001 (−0.01)
Cumulative ratifications	−.054* (−2.00)	−.050 (−1.75)	−.054* (−2.01)	−.044 (−1.57)	−.054* (−2.01)	−.045 (−1.60)
Log likelihood	−3894.98	−3573.29	−3886.37	−3570.32	−3876.29	−3559.92
LR χ²	80.79***	88.55***	98.01***	94.48***	98.17***	95.27***
Ratifications (n)	637	607	637	607	637	607
Yearly spells	1,6268	1,5815	1,6268	1,5815	1,6268	1,5815

GDP: gross domestic product; IGO: intergovernmental organization; LR: likelihood ratio.

Numbers in parentheses are z-values calculated using robust standard errors; all time-varying control variables use a 1-year lag.

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

Similar to political democratization, improved human rights in the previous year has a bigger impact on treaty ratification than similar improvement in the previous 3 years. Model 12 and Model 13 include both improved political rights and civil liberties. Improvement in civil liberties has a greater and more significant coefficient than that of improvement in political rights. In comparison with improved political rights, improvement in civil liberties plays a more salient role in intensifying a state’s tendency to ratify human rights treaties.

Effect of increased political competition: the concession mechanism

To test Hypothesis 3 about the effect of increased political competition, I estimate two additional models and present the results in Table 5. Two measures of increased political competition are added to the baseline Model 1. Model 14 contains the increase of political competition in the previous year, while Model 15 incorporates increased political competition in the previous 3 years. Both models show a significant improvement in the model fit in comparison with Model 1, according to the likelihood ratio test.

Table 5.

Cox models of state ratification of human rights treaties: Effects of increased political competition.

	Model 14	Model 15
Increase in political competition (previous year)	.124** (2.72)
Increase in political competition (previous 3 years)		.072* (2.10)
GDP per capita (logged)	−.119** (−2.86)	−.127** (−2.95)
Democracy	.010 (0.74)	.007 (0.46)
Civil liberties	.180** (3.05)	.168** (2.74)
Trade openness	−.339 (−1.41)	−.368 (−1.38)
IGO linkages	.014** (2.92)	.016** (3.01)
Regional diffusion	.015* (2.07)	.006 (0.88)
Global diffusion	.013 (0.03)	.001 (0.01)
Western culture	.121 (0.98)	.124 (1.06)
World system position	−.491* (−2.31)	−.530* (−2.57)
Common law system	−.144 (−1.57)	−.078 (−1.23)
Cold War	−.002 (−0.20)	−.002 (−0.08)
Cumulative ratifications	−.050 (−1.76)	−.031 (−1.64)
Log likelihood	−3888.15	−3685.68
LR χ²	84.55***	79.58***
Ratifications (n)	637	607
Yearly spells	1,6268	1,5815

GDP: gross domestic product; IGO: intergovernmental organization; LR: likelihood ratio.

Numbers in parentheses are z-values calculated using robust standard errors; all time-varying control variables use a 1-year lag.

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

Increased political competition in both the previous year and the previous 3 years has a significantly positive effect on the rate of ratification. A one-unit increase on the Polity IV political competition scale in the previous year elevates the ratification rate by 13.2% (e^.124−1), whereas that in the previous 3 years increases the rate by 7.5% (e^.072−1). Again, increased political competition in the previous year shows a greater impact than that in the previous 3 years.

Robustness checks

The conventional Cox model assumes a homogenous population in the analysis. Clustering within countries violates the independence assumption of the Cox model. For example, some countries may be more or less prone to treaty ratification due to unobserved country-specific characteristics, which introduces heterogeneity across countries. Both variance-corrected and frailty models can be employed to deal with this problem. It remains an unsolved question as to under which conditions one modeling strategy is preferred over the other (see Box-Steffensmeier and Jones, 2004: 164), so the best strategy is to try both. In the discussion above, I used variance-corrected models to account for unobserved heterogeneity by using robust standard errors. To check the robustness of the results, I also try frailty models and report the results in Table 6.

Table 6.

Shared frailty Cox models of state ratification of human rights treaties.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6	Model 7	Model 8
Incremental democratization (previous year)		.038** (3.03)				.018* (2.10)
Fundamental democratization (previous year)			.337*** (3.97)			.198** (3.01)
Political right improvement (previous year)				.101* (2.08)			.010 (1.75)
Civil liberty improvement (previous year)					.243** (2.99)		.217** (2.78)
Increase in competition (previous year)								.117** (2.84)
GDP per capita (logged)	−.137 (−1.45)	−.089 (−1.32)	−.108 (−1.40)	−.122 (−1.33)	−.104 (−1.28)	−.039 (−0.92)	−.049 (−1.01)	−.107 (−1.59)
Democracy	.012 (1.32)	−.008 (−0.77)	.007 (0.57)	−.021 (−0.52)	−.029 (−0.54)	−.006 (−0.75)	−.012 (−0.74)	.010 (0.56)
Civil liberties	.158** (3.25)	.134** (3.00)	.119** (3.10)	.151** (3.17)	.106* (2.30)	.118* (2.17)	.119* (2.24)	.142** (2.68)
Trade openness	−.251 (−1.51)	−.132 (−1.37)	−.166 (−1.65)	−.248 (−1.73)	−.213 (−1.51)	−.210 (−1.69)	−.156 (−1.84)	−.139 (−1.12)
IGO linkages	.011** (2.97)	.008* (2.23)	.010** (3.01)	.011** (3.26)	.009* (2.45)	.008* (2.05)	.012* (2.17)	.010** (3.37)
Regional diffusion	.015* (2.35)	.014* (2.08)	.014* (2.41)	.015* (2.31)	.014* (2.24)	.011* (1.97)	.012* (2.18)	.015* (2.01)
Global diffusion	.008 (0.13)	.006 (0.08)	.003 (0.06)	.008 (0.09)	.004 (0.05)	.003 (0.01)	.001 (0.01)	.007 (0.08)
Western culture	.083 (1.12)	.047 (1.18)	.060 (1.20)	.086 (1.28)	.072 (1.42)	.071 (1.19)	.065 (1.07)	.050 (1.29)
World system position	−.346* (−2.26)	−.324* (−2.04)	−.304* (−2.21)	−.308* (−2.16)	−.298* (−2.42)	−.523 (−1.78)	−.387 (−1.75)	−.389* (−2.40)
Common law system	−.150* (−2.10)	−.128 (−1.87)	−.119* (−2.13)	−.148* (−2.06)	−.109 (−1.94)	−.121 (−1.74)	−.115 (−1.45)	−.123 (−1.36)
Cold War	−.001 (−0.32)	−.001 (−0.17)	−.001 (−0.12)	−.001 (−0.23)	−.001 (−0.12)	−.001 (−0.01)	−.001 (−0.01)	−.001 (−0.09)
Cumulative ratifications	−.054** (−2.97)	−.046* (−2.01)	−.046* (−2.34)	−.053 (−1.95)	−.052 (−1.93)	−.045* (−2.01)	−.041 (−1.85)	−.048 (−1.41)
Frailty parameter θ	.177	.152	.160	.159	.153	.147	.150	.156
Log likelihood	−3852.17	−3831.44	−3837.25	−3839.71	−3833.10	−3827.31	−3829.12	−3838.15
Ratifications (n)	637	637	637	637	637	637	637	637
Yearly spells	1,6268	1,6268	1,6268	1,6268	1,6268	1,6268	1,6268	1,6268

GDP: gross domestic product; IGO: intergovernmental organization.

Numbers in parentheses are z-values; all time-varying control variables use a 1-year lag.

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

Specifically, here, I use the “shared frailty” model, as ratification of treaties in a cluster (country) is assumed to share the same frailty.¹³ This shared frailty accounts for unobserved heterogeneity unique to each cluster (country). I use the stcox, shared command in Stata, to estimate shared frailty models. These models generate substantively similar results as those from variance-corrected models.

Conclusion and discussion

Several important conclusions can be drawn from the results above. First, political democratization does significantly increase the rate of treaty ratification, even after all other relevant influences are taken into account. Moreover, improvement in human rights and increase of political competition significantly raise the rate of ratification too. These findings bear out the hypotheses derived from the dynamic approach based on “commitment” and “concession” theories. Democratization does intensify a state’s tendency to ratify human rights treaties.

Second, both incremental democratization and more thorough political transition toward democracy have positive effects on treaty ratification. Therefore, a state does not have to become a full-fledged democracy to have intensified motives for treaty ratification. As long as it moves toward democracy, the commitment and concession mechanisms will operate and motivate the state to ratify.

Third, in comparison with improvement in such political rights as fair election, political pluralism, and accountability of the government, the effect of improvement in civil liberties, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, personal autonomy, and individual rights, is more salient in facilitating treaty ratification. Joining international human rights treaties is (or is perceived to be) particularly useful for securing civil liberties in a democratizing country, so a state with recently improved civil liberties is especially eager to ratify.

Fourth, the ratification-promoting effect of political democratization (as well as improved human rights and increased political competition) operates in an immediate fashion. Domestic political change over the previous 3 years has less influence on treaty ratification than that in the previous year. Political change creates incentives for states to ratify immediately, and the momentum gradually weakens over time.

These findings further contribute to the scholarship on international human rights. First, this study confirms the utility of a dynamic state-oriented explanation for global institutionalization of human rights. It stresses the role of the state in the legalization and diffusion of human rights over the globe, and thus complements the existing literature that emphasizes external influences from global society. The findings shed light on the debate about what types of states are most ready to embrace human rights treaties. The narrow attention to regime types is misplaced. It is not a particular type of state regime that facilitates treaty ratification; instead, it is the change in state institutions toward democracy that induces swifter acceptance of human rights treaties. Thus, it is neither democracies nor autocracies, but democratizing states, that are most ready to embrace global legalization of human rights.¹⁴ The commitment and concession mechanisms intensify the motives of democratizing states to support human rights treaties. Moreover, these mechanisms not only motivate a democratizing state to ratify treaties, but they also require it to do so in a timely manner, for fear of losing hard earned, and not yet secured, reform gains. As a result, the intensified motives are often urgent and translate into treaty ratification swiftly.

Second, the findings reveal an intertwined relationship between global democratization waves and the establishment of the human rights regime. The number of democratized states has increased steadily over the last few decades (Huntington, 1991). Over the same period, human rights have been institutionalized into an international regime. Although these two trends largely occur at the same time, very few studies have tried to build a theoretically sound and empirically testable connection between them. This study offers such a connection. At the state level, democratizing states are more likely to embrace human rights treaties; consequently, at the global level, as more and more states democratize, global institutionalization of human rights becomes widely supported by more states. For example, it is no coincidence that we observe a prominent rise in treaty ratification during the early 1990s when “democratic waves” hit Latin America, Eastern and Central Europe, and other regions. Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) claim that as new norms emerge and are adopted by a few leader states, a “cascade” effect results. According to the findings here, this “norm cascade” phenomenon, which has become a popular explanation for global institutionalization of human rights in the existing literature, materializes only after many democratizing states start the trend and generate the momentum.

Third, this study also has the potential to address the debate about the effect of human rights treaties. Scholars have long been debating whether ratification of human rights treaties has any real effect on improvement of human rights in practice. Recently, the pessimistic “no effect” argument has drawn much attention. Many empirical studies (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui, 2005, 2007; Hathaway, 2002; Keith, 1999) conclude that while human rights treaties have become increasingly popular, there has not been a corresponding improvement in human rights practices. Some studies go even further by claiming that the human rights sector exhibits signs of “radical decoupling,” where ratification of human rights treaties is simply a “window-dressing” act of the state (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui, 2005; Hafner-Burton et al., 2008). Treaty ratification not only lacks efficacy in improving human rights practices but may have the opposite effect. It negatively affects human rights practices by providing a shield for states that wish to pursue more repressive behavior. However, we need to more carefully scrutinize the causal relationship between treaty ratification and human rights practices. Unlike the existing literature that assumes a causal direction from treaty ratification to human rights practices, this study suggests that the actual causal direction is likely to be the other way around—political democratization and improved human rights lead to treaty ratification. This causal direction may explain why joining human rights treaties shows no effect or even a negative effect on states’ human rights practices afterward. Improvement in human rights practices may occur well before, not after, the state ratifies human rights treaties.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I thank Jason Beckfield, Peter V. Marsden, Martin K. Whyte, Anxiang Wang, Rationality and Society editor Douglas Heckathorn, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. I also thank Elissa Wolfson for her help with the submitted manuscript.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

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Signaling commitments,making concessions: Democratization and state ratification of international human rights treaties,1966–2006

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

State ratification of human rights treaties

Rationalist analysis: Small cost, big benefit

Global normative pressure and legitimacy-seeking

Domestic political institutions

A dynamic perspective on treaty ratification

The “commitment” mechanism

The “concession” mechanism

Hypotheses

Data and method

Dependent variables

Explanatory variables

Political democratization

Incremental democratization measures

Fundamental democratization measures

Improvement in human rights

Increase in political competition

Control variables

Level of democracy

Economic development

Human rights practices

Economic openness

International organization linkages

Diffusion

Civilization type

World system position

Legal tradition

Historical contingency

Ratification dynamics

Method

Results

Global trend in ratification of human rights treaties

Overall effect of political democratization

Effect of improved human rights: The commitment mechanism

Effect of increased political competition: the concession mechanism

Robustness checks

Conclusion and discussion

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Funding

Notes

References