Legal commitments to United Nations human rights treaties and higher monitoring standards in the Universal Periodic Review

ABSTRACT

My research explores states' participation in the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) as recommenders in conjunction with their level of commitments to the UN nine core human rights instruments. Briefly capturing the unique institutional features of the UPR's interactive dialogue, and taking into consideration recommending states' resource constraints as well as their human rights agendas, I argue that states' legal commitments to other international human rights standards empower them to make more meaningful recommendations to peer states. However, the substance of meaningful recommendations differs drastically between democratic and nondemocratic reviewing states. Both democracies and nondemocracies that have ratified a higher number of human rights treaties are inclined to urge peer states to join, to deepen commitments, or to take specific measures regarding such international human rights instruments. However, unlike their democratic counterparts, those nondemocracies do not further propose that reviewed states carry out specific domestic legal, institutional, and policy reforms.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Courtney Hillebrecht, Benjamin Appel, Courtenay Conrad, Chris Fariss, Jill Haglund, Dai Xinyuan, and other participants in the overlapping institutions workshop hosted by the Forsythe Family Program on Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, April 18–19, 2016, for sharing early ideas about how to study overlapping human rights institutions.

Notes

1. Institutional Review Board exemption number HUM00108943.

2. Some details of the institutional features of the UPR have changed since the first cycle after the revision of modalities by the HRC Resolution A/HRC/RES/16/21 on March 25, 2011. The overall strategic implications of the UPR's institutional design remain intact and so does the pattern of state recommendations (McMahon and Johnson 2016).

3. Recommendations are grouped into five different action categories based on the expected costs of implementation, which are “Minimum Action,” “Continuing Action,” “Considering Action,” “General Action,” and “Specific Action” recommendations (McMahon 2012: 14–15). See McMahon (2012) for more detailed description.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2016S1A3A2925085) as well as by the Department of Political Science (Research Grant) and the Rackham Graduate School (Rackham Graduate Candidate Research Grant) at the University of Michigan.

Notes on contributors

Mi Hwa Hong

Mi Hwa Hong is a research professor in the SSK International Human Rights Center at the Graduate School of International Studies of Korea University, Seoul. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research interests include international organizations and international law, with a particular focus on international human rights treaties, the UN Human Rights Council, Universal Periodic Review, autocratic politics, and postconflict justice.