Insincere Commitments

Human Rights Treaties, Abusive States, and Citizen Activism

Heather Smith-Cannoy

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781589018877
• eBook ISBN: 9781589018969
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Human Rights
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Paradoxically, many governments that persistently violate human rights have also ratified international human rights treaties that empower their citizens to file grievances against them at the United Nations. Therefore, citizens in rights-repressing regimes find themselves with the potentially invaluable opportunity to challenge their government’s abuses. Why would rights-violating governments ratify these treaties and thus afford their citizens this right? Can the mechanisms provided in these treaties actually help promote positive changes in human rights?

Insincere Commitments uses both quantitative and qualitative analysis to examine the factors contributing to commitment and compliance among post-Soviet states such as Slovakia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Heather Smith-Cannoy argues that governments ratify these treaties insincerely in response to domestic economic pressures. Signing the treaties is a way to at least temporarily keep critics of their human rights record at bay while they secure international economic assistance or more favorable trade terms. However, she finds that through the specific protocols in the treaties that grant individuals the right to petition the UN, even the most insincere state commitments to human rights can give previously powerless individuals—and the nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations that partner with them—an important opportunity that they would otherwise not have to challenge patterns of government repression on the global stage.

This insightful book will be of interest to human rights scholars, students, and practitioners, as well as anyone interested in the UN, international relations, treaties, and governance.

1
A New Approach to Commitment and Compliance

TRADITIONALLY IN INTERNATIONAL relations, we conceive of the state as the final locus of authority. Citizens take their complaints of abuse to domestic courts; whatever remedy they may receive accrues to them through domestic legal channels. Prior to the introduction of individual petition at the UN there was no opportunity available for citizens to bypass their national courts and make claims against their governments in global adjudicative bodies. Since the right of the individual petition at the UN was introduced in 1965 more than two thousand individuals have taken advantage of this opportunity. In 2002, twenty-seven Roma citizens living in Dobšiná, Slovakia, petitioned the UN Committee on Racial Discrimination to protest the cancellation of low-cost housing construction. The UN Committee agreed that racial discrimination against the Roma motivated the town council to cancel their construction plans, and ordered the Slovaks to continue construction (L.R. et al. v. Slovakia).

Why would a government opt to allow its citizens a new, extrastate venue for complaining about domestic human rights violations? And what are the consequences of making this commitment? Scholars have explained commitment to human rights treaties with a variety of different theories—domestic political considerations (Simmons 2009; Vreeland 2008; Moravcsik 2000), the anticipated costs associated with adjusting human rights policies to comply with treaty terms (Goodliffe and Hawkins 2006; Hathaway 2003; Cole 2005b) and socialization to global norms of behavior (Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999. These theories generally cluster around one of two broader approaches to commitment: exogenous socialization from the global community and endogenous cost/benefit calculation. Rather than a purely global or a purely domestic explanation, pressures emanating from both of these sources best explain deeper levels of commitment to human rights among newly independent states. In examining the experiences of ratifying governments in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the 1990s, it is apparent that ratification allowed leaders to achieve a strategic compromise between domestic and global pressures.

Like the commitment literature, the compliance literature has also split along constructivist and rationalist lines. Drawing on Checkel (2001), the approach to compliance advocated here emphasizes domestic processes and agency to argue that under certain conditions, NGOs enhance the likelihood of compliance. The rest of this chapter develops both the commitment and compliance arguments while surveying extant literatures in both fields.

Insincere Commitments:Responding to Domestic Economic Pressures

A good starting point for understanding the domestic pressures that motivated newly independent governments to make public commitments to their citizens’ human rights is to consider their preferences. When Askar Akaev assumed power in Kyrgyzstan, what did he hope to achieve by granting his citizens the right to petition the UN Human Rights Committee? What did Viktor Orban, who became the prime minister of Hungary in 1998, and his FIDESZ party claim were their goals when they granted Hungarian women the right to petition the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women? Political scientists typically assume that political elites want to keep their jobs (Mayhew 1974). Beyond remaining in office, the leaders of Central Asian and Eastern European governments also had to address the economic challenges of transitioning from command to capitalist economies. This was no easy task in the 1990s, with domestic conflicts over distribution of previously state-owned enterprises looming large on the political scene. Conflicts over how to privatize, which actors should play the largest role in the process, and the pace of privatization dominated the domestic legislative debates during this period.¹

In some countries, such as Russia, privatization occurred spontaneously, with stakeholders seizing state assets because the government lacked effective control of industry following the transition (Carlin and Mayer 1992). In Hungary and Poland, government officials intentionally delegated privatization authority to industry (Carlin and Mayer 1992). The Czech Republic opted for a voucher system, allowing citizens and private actors the opportunity to bid for shares in previously state-owned enterprises (Makhija 2003). In Poland, managers of state-owned industries employed a variation on spontaneous privatization, seeking out international partners and offering them highly favorable terms in exchange for a position in the new enterprise (Lipton, Sachs, and Summers 1990).

The newly elected leaders in Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the early 1990s came to the helm of these governments during a period of massive political and economic upheaval. While there are myriad ways in which privatization affected policy decisions, I focus here on three. First, output growth fell dramatically across these regions, reaching 40 percent of previous levels at their lowest point (Fischer and Sahay 2001, 4). By 1998 only three countries—Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia—had surpassed their pretransition output growth (Fischer and Sahay 2001, 9). Poor economic output meant less available tax revenue (Barr 2001, 171). The consequences of diminished tax revenues for politicians can be particularly problematic, especially for leaders in postsocialist states with constituents accustomed to expansive social safety nets.²

A second consequence of privatization was a wide distribution in income and earnings (Barr 2001, 171). Income disparities (traditionally measured by Gini coefficients) varied considerably by country. Higher Gini coefficients mean more income inequality. For countries like the United States, with higher income disparity, the Gini coefficient was .38 in the mid-2000s.³ During the same period, France had a Gini coefficient of .28 and hence lower income inequality. Central Asia experienced the widest income disparity between its highest- and lowest-paid workers. In both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan the Gini coefficient reached .47 between 1996 and 1999, meaning that top income earners typically earned ten times the salary of low-income earners (World Bank 2000b, 139–41). Central and Eastern European governments, like Hungary and the Czech Republic, avoided the high levels of income disparity experienced by Central Asian countries. Between 1996 and 1998 Hungary’s Gini coefficient was .25 and Poland’s Gini coefficient was .33 (World Bank 2000b, 140).

Income distribution is not necessarily a poor outcome. The distribution meant that market forces were determining incomes. My point here is to suggest that new—and in some cases large—income disparities had considerable effects on social stability and enhanced levels of poverty. The transition had a devastating impact on absolute poverty levels throughout Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia—between 1988 and 1998 poverty in these regions increased between 2 and 21 percent (World Bank 2000a). World Bank estimates suggest that prior to their transition, one out of every twenty-five people in these regions survived on less than $2.15 per day; by 1998, one out of every five lived on $2.15 per day (World Bank 2000b).

A third consequence of privatization was a series of unanticipated economic crises in transitioning economies. These countries experienced banking, debt, and currency crises throughout the 1990s. Loss of consumer confidence in banks, owing to poor policies designed to counter inflation, led to speculation on banks and banking crises across these regions (EBRD 1999). By 1996, nineteen banks in Bulgaria closed because consumers lost confidence and withdrew their savings, leaving the banks with negative capital and nonperforming portfolios (Gulde 1999). In 1997 the Czech Republic, which had led the region in maintaining stability during the economic transformation, was hit by both a currency crisis and a banking crisis (EBRD 1999). Tougher Central Bank regulations contributed to a loss of credibility in the Central Bank’s exchange rate policy, which led to bankruptcies, output decline, and unemployment (EBRD 1999, 76). Moreover, when subnational units (towns, municipalities, etc.) were given the opportunity to manage their finances for the first time, many, like those in Hungary, sought to borrow long term to finance short-term deficits (Liu and Waibel 2008). By late 1993, eight Hungarian banks were deemed insolvent.

Table 1.1 Summary of Domestic Economic Pressures on CEE and Central Asian Leaders

• Diminished output growth → fewer tax revenues

• Gap in income distribution → poverty

• Unanticipated financial and economic crises → instability and unemployment

Prevailing weaknesses in their domestic economies shaped the policies these leaders adopted throughout the 1990s and made them more receptive to global actors with the resources to help. These leaders did not reflexively grant their citizens the right to sue them because they faced poor domestic economic conditions. Rather, these acute financial challenges heightened their receptiveness to recommendations from Western audiences, some of whom were making targeted recommendations about human rights at this time.

Insincere Commitments: Responding to Global Pressures

Domestic economic pressures alone cannot explain why these governments ratified some treaties but not others—or why they granted their citizens the right to petition the UN treaty bodies for violations of some treaties but not others. Domestic economic pressures motivated new leaders to reach out to external actors. Two sets of global pressures, one explicit and one implicit, encouraged newly independent leaders to grant their citizens the right to petition the UN for violations of certain treaties.

First, the global actors engaged with newly transitioning states in the 1990s—the EU in Central and Eastern Europe and the United States through USAID in Central Asia—made targeted and in some cases highly critical recommendations about which human rights policies to adopt. Throughout the 1990s the European Commission was carefully monitoring potential applicant countries to assess their compliance with the Copenhagen Criteria. The Copenhagen Criteria dictate general economic, political, and human rights policies expected of new EU members. Aspiring EU members are obliged to provide equal treatment to minority communities. This was a tall order for newly independent states. Much of the conflict that developed between Slovakia and the EU, for example, focused on human rights protections for Hungarian and Roma minorities. The extreme pressures that potential applicant countries faced to bring their policies in line with those of the EU help explain why Eastern European countries were particularly inclined to accept the oversight of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (55 percent of the countries in the region), but less inclined to accept the oversight of other committees.

Table 1.2 Summary of Global Human Rights Pressures on CEE and Central Asian Leaders

• Targeted human rights recommendations from the European Commission and the US (explicit)

• New leaders associating human rights treaties with the West (implicit)

While the European Commission was providing careful annual assessments of the human rights practices of European states seeking entry into the EU, USAID was actively engaged in Central Asia, particularly in Kyrgyzstan. Demands from the United States for independent judiciaries, free and fair elections, and other hallmarks of democratic governance in the region help to explain why Central Asian states overwhelmingly accepted the oversight of the UN Human Rights Committee, which oversees implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The EU and the US were the actors empowered with the resources to help alleviate the economic struggles associated with privatization. Their recommendations would have been considerably important to newly independent leaders as a potential source of economic assistance.

A second and more implicit global pressure emanated from the nature of the UN human rights treaties themselves and the early conflicts that surrounded their development. Beginning with the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in the UN General Assembly in 1948, a divide between Cold War adversaries emerged. While the United States and Western European democracies voted in favor of the UDHR—which included the rights of political participation, freedom from discrimination and torture, freedom of movement, and the right to health care—the Soviets and their allies abstained. This early divide critically shaped the development of subsequent human rights treaties. The Soviets and the Eastern bloc states argued that economic and social rights should be established before civil and political rights, while the US and Western European states suggested that both sets of rights were essential to human rights.⁴ Rather than resolve the conflict between them, two separate treaties were established to address both issues in isolation. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were both established, albeit separately, in 1966.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Communist leaders and a variety of other non-Western, developing governments began to argue forcefully that economic rights must precede civil and political rights. The Soviet delegate to the UN argued that “the exercise of economic and social rights was a prerequisite for the exercise of all other human rights and fundamental freedoms.”⁵ These early debates and political preferences essentially gave the ICCPR the Western stamp of approval. So when post-Soviet states emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union, they had one relatively straightforward way to send a cheap signal about their commitment to human rights—to ratify the ICCPR and its Optional Protocol at long last.

Insincere Commitments: How Domestic and Global Pressures Explain Commitment

How did granting their citizens the right to petition the UN help newly elected leaders in CEE and Central Asian countries alleviate these domestic and global pressures? Governments in these regions possessed two crosscutting considerations that contributed to ratification. On the one hand, poor domestic economic conditions heightened their need for global partners with the resources to rescue their economies. Public dissatisfaction over income disparities, decreased social services, and unemployment threatened leaders’ ability to remain in office. To appease their constituents and remedy these economic crises, it was essential to take heed of the recommendations of Western states and institutions.

However, these leaders also had a second consideration to address. While a complete democratic overhaul of their domestic institutions would have satisfied the United States and the EU, among many newly independent states this move could have reduced the leader’s ability to remain in power. Instituting policies that liberalize media restrictions, encourage citizen participation in the electoral process, or allow for significant institutional checks on executive power all serve to ensure democratic succession—something that new leaders may have hoped to avoid. Opening domestic institutions to true democratic competition and transparency could have been considered prohibitively costly for leaders of newly transitioning states. This would have been particularly true in Central Asia, where there was no experience with democracy or citizen participation in government. The political structures that developed in Central Asia during this period reflect this deep internal conflict. Despite the democratic constitution in Kyrgyzstan, for example, the state functions more like an autocracy.⁶ Leaders in these regions had to strike a bargain between competing interests—temporarily boosting their democratic credentials in the hopes of obtaining economic assistance, but avoiding extensive democratization that could threaten their ability to retain power.

These pressures help to explain the puzzle of high regional commitment to human rights, despite poor domestic human rights protections. Accepting the oversight of UN human rights committees served as one cheap way governments could resolve this dilemma.⁷ However, unlike treaty ratification alone, granting citizens the right to petition the UN treaty bodies with claims of rights abuses is essentially a gamble for governments—it opens up the possibility that a government will be called to the UN, but does not guarantee that a government will be called. In some cases this gamble has paid off—the Czechs have yet to be brought before the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, despite granting their citizens this opportunity in 2000 and passing highly questionable policies toward the Roma. The Uzbeks have lost out in this gamble—they have been called to the UN Human Rights Committee eighty-three times for claims arising out of violations of the Int...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 A New Approach to Commitment and Compliance
• 2 Patterns of Commitment
• 3 Causes of Commitment
• 4 Individual Petitions in Eastern Europe: Racial Discrimination in Slovakia
• 5 Hungary and the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
• 6 The UN Human Rights Committee in Central Asia: Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
• 7 The Causes and Consequences of Commitment Reconsidered
• Appendix
• References
• Index