Institutionalizing shame: The effect of Human Rights Committee rulings on abuse, 1981–2007

What motivates compliance with “toothless” international human rights norms? This article analyzes the effectiveness of procedures that allow individuals to petition an international human rights body, the Human Rights Committee, alleging state abuse of their treaty-protected rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Using methodological tools that account for selection biases arising from a country’s decision to authorize petitions and its subsequent propensity to be targeted by abuse claims, I find that basic civil rights and religious freedoms improved after states were found to have violated their human rights treaty obligations, whereas physical integrity abuses such as disappearances and extrajudicial killing were somewhat more impervious to change. These findings are interpreted with reference to the concept of “coupling” as borrowed from organizational sociology, and their implications for treaty design and enforcement are considered.

► I use three-stage models to analyze the effect of Human Rights Committee rulings on human rights outcomes.
► Two kinds of outcomes are analyzed: civil/political rights and physical integrity rights.
► Rulings are effective in reducing the abuse of assembly, speech, and religious freedoms.
► Rulings are largely ineffective in promoting free and fair elections or in mitigating abuse of physical integrity rights.