Treaties, Constitutions, Courts, and Human Rights

Abstract

The effects of treaties on human rights performance may depend in part on how domestic legal systems articulate with international law. The idea motivating this study is that constitutional law can make a difference not necessarily by including rights but by acknowledging and connecting to treaty law. This study is a first attempt to explore the interrelated effects of treaties, constitutions, and courts on human rights performance. The key proposition is that human rights treaties may have a greater influence on rights in countries whose constitutions incorporate treaty law and whose courts are independent of the political branches of government. The analysis tests that proposition using data from about 150 countries across 20 or more years. The results offer evidence that treaties, constitutions, and courts do combine, at times, to improve human rights performance, with judicial independence playing the key role.

Notes

1. I am grateful to Tom Ginsburg, Zachary Elkins, and James Melton for generously sharing additional data with me.

2. All of the factors that make a country unique but that are not observed will produce estimates that are related within countries but differ systematically across countries. Not surprisingly, a Hausman test performed after ordinary least squares regression clearly indicated that country fixed effects would be appropriate.

3. Landman (2005) and Simmons (2009) both model the relationship between treaties and human rights using least squares regression for ordinal variables.

4. The marginal effects and their statistical significance were computed using the “margins” command in Stata 11.2, with the “dy/dx” option. The p value for the marginal effects is not reported in the regressions themselves, which produce separate p values for the variables and their interactions but not an overall p value for each variable with its interactions.

5. The PTS levels of political terror are as follows:

	“Level 5: Terror has expanded to the whole population. The leaders of these societies place no limits on the means or thoroughness with which they pursue personal or ideological goals.”
	“Level 4: Civil and political rights violations have expanded to large numbers of the population. Murders, disappearances, and torture are a common part of life. In spite of its generality, on this level terror affects those who interest themselves in politics or ideas.”
	“Level 3: There is extensive political imprisonment, or a recent history of such imprisonment. Execution or other political murders and brutality may be common. Unlimited detention, with or without a trial, for political views is accepted.”
	“Level 2: There is a limited amount of imprisonment for nonviolent political activity. However, few persons are affected, torture and beatings are exceptional. Political murder is rare.”
	“Level 1: Countries under a secure rule of law, people are not imprisoned for their views, and torture is rare or exceptional. Political murders are extremely rare” (Gibney et al. 2010). Political Terror Scale 1976-2008. http://www.politicalterrorscale.org/index.php. [Accessed 28 June 2011] I have reversed the scale so that higher numbers represent greater respect for human rights.