Who commits to regional human rights treaties? Reputational benefits, sovereignty costs, and regional dynamics

Abstract

Abstract Over the past 50 years, regional international organizations have adopted several treaties on human rights. By ratifying them, member states can signal their commitment to the norms codified in the respective documents. Yet ratification patterns vary greatly across both states and treaties. Extant studies of commitment to human rights focus on the impacts of reputational benefits and sovereignty costs. These arguments, however, are largely based on studies of ratification behavior in Europe and the UN system. We extend this logic to treaties created in the Organization of American States (OAS) and the African Union (OAU/AU). Between them, the two organizations have adopted 15 human rights agreements, giving their member states ample choices about (non)ratification. We apply event-history analysis to newly collected data on treaty commitment. This reveals variation in line with regional differences in how treaties are elaborated. Benefits from commitment expected by democratic and democratizing states play an important role in the member-state driven process in the OAS, but this is not the case in the OAU/AU. In the expert-driven context of the OAU/AU, in contrast, concerns about sovereignty costs related to treaty design and the relative power of member states are more pronounced.