Description
Book SynopsisDo international human rights treaties constrain governments from repressing their populations and violating rights? In Contentious Compliance, Courtenay R. Conrad and Emily Hencken Ritter present a new theory of human rights treaty effects founded on the idea that governments repress as part of a domestic conflict with potential or actual dissidents. By introducing dissent like peaceful protests, strikes, boycotts, or direct violent attacks on government, their theory improves understanding of when states will violate rights-and when international laws will work to protect people. Conrad and Ritter investigate the effect of international human rights treaties on domestic conflict and ultimately find that treaties improve human rights outcomes by altering the structure of conflict between political authorities and potential dissidents. A powerful, careful, and empirically sophisticated rejoinder to the critics of international human rights law, Contentious Compliance offers new insights and analyses that will reshape our thinking on law and political violence.
Table of ContentsDedication Acknowledgments Professional acknowledgments Personal acknowledgments: Courtenay Personal acknowledgments: Emily I Introduction 1 Do human rights treaties protect rights? II A theory of domestic conflict & international treaty constraint 2 A model of conflict and constraint 3 Empirical implications of treaty effects on conflict III An empirical investigation of conflict & treaty constraint 4 Using data to determine the effect of treaties on repression & dissent 5 Substantive empirical results: Government repression 6 Substantive empirical results: Mobilized dissent IV Conclusion 7 Conclusion: Human rights treaties (sometimes) protect rights V Appendices Appendix to Chapter 3: Proofs of formal theory Appendix to Chapter 6: Empirical results for government repression Appendix to Chapter 7: Empirical results for mobilized dissent Appendix to Chapters 5, 6, 7: Summary of online robustness checks
