Infidel or Heretic To Be? Punishment of Human Rights Violations by ICCPR Membership

Abstract:

It is often argued that because human rights treaties and conventions entail no explicit enforcement mechanism, they do not lead to better human rights records among signatory states. While the ineffectiveness of treaties is widely accepted, a key as- sumption – that there are no international costs to committing to a treaty and then violating it – has gone untested. In this paper, we put this assumption to the test. We ask whether signing key international treaties, such as the convention against torture and the covenant on civil and political rights, reduces or increases the subsequent risk that a human rights violator will be subject to economic sanctions by the European Union or the United States. The results speak to the existence of an alternative mecha- nism for enforcing international commitments to weak international regimes, and have implications for the design of such treaties in the future.