Exploring the Universe of UN Human Rights Agreements

• Date: 01 April 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002717721395
• Author: Jana von Stein
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• Subject Matter: Data Set Feature

Data Set Feature

Exploring the Universe

of UN Human Rights

Agreements

Jana von Stein

1

Abstract

The international human rights (HR) regime is vast and complex. Yet, most of what

we know about it draws from a handful of agreements, often chosen for their

prominence and/or perceived centrality to the HR project. This article argues that

HR research needs to expand its scope to encompass all agreements in this realm,

and presents a new data resource that enables scholars to accomplish that goal.

Using the data, I demonstrate that the literature has painted an unrepresentative

portrait of HR agreements. In addition to making comprehensive analysis possible,

the database moves the literature forward by (1) taking into account important legal

distinctions in the process of making treaties binding, (2) providing information on

treaty design, and (3) considering relationships between agreements. I present

several applications and discuss future areas of inquiry. Network analysis and the

linking of treaty participation to HR outcomes are two notable areas of interest.

Keywords

human rights, international treaties, quantitative analysis, database

Today, human rights agreements (HRAs) are ubiquitous in the international legal

landscape. A treaty or other international legal document

1

exists in defense of

virtually any entitlement one can think of: torture prohibition, wage equality, basic

1

Political Science and International Relations Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington,

New Zealand

Corresponding Author:

Jana von Stein, Political Science and International Relations Programme, Victoria University of Wellington,

Wellington 6140, New Zealand.

Email: jana.vonstein@vuw.ac.nz

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2018, Vol. 62(4) 871-899

ªThe Author(s) 2017

Reprints and permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0022002717721395

journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr

education, religious freedom, and many more. Every country in the world has

pledged to respect at least one “core”

2

human rights (HR) treaty (Office of the

UN High Commissioner of Human Rights [OHCHR] 2016b), and most have made

more extensive promises. Dozens of countries have incorporated lan guage from

these agreements into their constitutions (Beck, Drori , and Meyer 2012; Elkins,

Ginsburg, and Simmons 2013).

Why are states willing to commit to international scrutiny, an area that interna-

tional law has historically regarded as a purely domestic matter? For decades—even

as the global HR regime was expanding in size, scope, and complexity—interna-

tional law and international relations (IR) scholars rarely asked the question (Hath-

away 2007). This has changed dramatically in recent years. Across the social

sciences and beyond, scholars have ta ken great interest in the internat ional HR

regime and in HR practices more generally (Hafner-Burton 2014). This trend is

perhaps most palpable in quantitative IR research, which now comprises dozens if

not hundreds of studies of the topic.

3

Few would debate that the international HR regime is vast and complex. Yet,

most of what we know about it draws from a handful of agreements, often chosen for

their prominence in the United Nations (UN) system (Elkins, Ginsburg, and Sim-

mons 2013; Simmons 2009) and/or perceived centrality to the HR project (Hafner-

Burton and Ron 2009). These agreements make up only a small portion of the

treaties in the UN HRA regime, and there is good reason to believe that they are

not representative of the broader body of international HR law.

Our understanding of the HRA regime is constrained in at least three other ways.

First, most work focuses on ratification

4

or its legal equivalent, largely neglecting

other important elements of legalization that matter for a treaty’s legal status and,

some would argue, for its legitimacy (Abbott et al. 2000). Second, scholars often

overlook important aspects of treaty design, particularly those surrounding states’

use of mechanisms that “ramp up” sovereignty costs.

5

Finally, while even its stron-

gest critics recognize that the HRA regime is a veritable complex (Posner 2014),

existing work provides very little systematic consideration of the relationships

between the agreements that form it.

This article argues that HRA research needs to expand its scope in order to over-

come these limitations. To facilitate this goal, I present a new database—the Database

of UN Human Rights Agreements (DHRA; http://www.humanrightstreaties.org)—

that covers all HRAs in the global organization. This descriptive accuracy and

nuance provide a panorama of international HR law—an important improvement

on the selective snapshots the literature has accumulated so far. The database also

enables us to better engage with important debates in the literature and in the policy

world. For instance, is there a trade-off between gaining widespread participation

and getting governments to make commitments that impose meaningful constraints

(Downs, Rocke, and Barsoom 1996)?

The article is organized as follows. In the following section, I provide a brief

overview of the HRA universe and of the quantitative HRA literature, showing why

872 Journal of Conflict Resolution 62(4)