Political Regimes and International Human Rights Commitments: The Moderation Effect of Treaty's Control Mechanism

JANOVSKÝ, Jozef and Katarína ŠIPULOVÁ. Political Regimes and International Human Rights Commitments: The Moderation Effect of Treaty's Control Mechanism. In Venice Academy of Human Rights - PluriCourts (University of Oslo): Judicial Legitimacy and the Rule of Law (Workshop lead by Philip Alston). 2014.

Basic information

• Original name: Political Regimes and International Human Rights Commitments: The Moderation Effect of Treaty's Control Mechanism
• Name (in English): Political Regimes and International Human Rights Commitments: The Moderation Effect of Treaty's Control Mechanism
• Authors: JANOVSKÝ, Jozef and Katarína ŠIPULOVÁ.
• Edition: Venice Academy of Human Rights - PluriCourts (University of Oslo): Judicial Legitimacy and the Rule of Law (Workshop lead by Philip Alston), 2014.

Other information

• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Keywords in English: International human rights commitments; political regimes; control mechanism
• Tags: International impact

Abstract

Different states ratify different international human rights treaties. Many explanations for this variance have been proposed, relating e.g. to the character of the political regime, political ideologies of the governing parties, treaty characteristics and the EU accession process. We argue that the degree of strength and legitimacy of the treaty’s control mechanism moderates the effect of the political regime. For example, non-democracies are less likely to ratify a human rights treaty if its control mechanism is strong but not otherwise. The moderation effect hypothesis is tested using a dataset of the behaviour of Slovakia and the Czech Republic with regards to more than 190 human rights treaties. The unique political experience of these countries contains non-democratic, semi-democratic, democratic and transitional periods as well. This is very important as it allows for a detailed examination of the moderation effect of interest. Other domestic-level, national-level, international-level and treaty-level variables were also collected and serve as control variables. In-depth qualitative analysis for a few key treaties is provided to complement the statistical analysis.

Abstract (in English)

Different states ratify different international human rights treaties. Many explanations for this variance have been proposed, relating e.g. to the character of the political regime, political ideologies of the governing parties, treaty characteristics and the EU accession process. We argue that the degree of strength and legitimacy of the treaty’s control mechanism moderates the effect of the political regime. For example, non-democracies are less likely to ratify a human rights treaty if its control mechanism is strong but not otherwise. The moderation effect hypothesis is tested using a dataset of the behaviour of Slovakia and the Czech Republic with regards to more than 190 human rights treaties. The unique political experience of these countries contains non-democratic, semi-democratic, democratic and transitional periods as well. This is very important as it allows for a detailed examination of the moderation effect of interest. Other domestic-level, national-level, international-level and treaty-level variables were also collected and serve as control variables. In-depth qualitative analysis for a few key treaties is provided to complement the statistical analysis.