International Law, Human Rights, and Non-State Actors

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

How do international institutions affect human rights on the ground? How does international law affect domestic actors’ decisions to violate or respect human rights? While states join these institutions and are often thought of as the primary actors in international politics, non-state actors play an important role in the global human rights regime. We explore how various non-state actors—including individual human rights victims, national citizens, domestic community groups, international NGOs, and rebel groups—interact with international legal institutions to influence human rights practices.

We explore how individuals participate in international law by filling complaints against their state to the Human Rights Committee, which oversees the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Next, we investigate citizens’ perceptions of state participation in the international human rights agreements and find that knowledge of treaty ratification significantly increases support for the current political regime. Third, we use fine-grained data to analyze the influence of international institutions on domestic human rights campaigns, disaggregating actors based on domestic/foreign and state/non-state associations. Finally, we consider how United Nations Actions Plans affect rebel behavior in a civil war. This panel suggests that non-state actors are an important, and overlooked, component of the international human rights regime by participating in its legal institutions, forming domestic political opinions based on state participation, and being the target of legal interventions.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 45: Human Rights

Individual Presentations

• Confronting a Repressive Regime: Individual Petitions in International Law - Rachel Schoner, University of California, San Diego

• Citizen Perceptions of International Human Rights Agreements: Evidence from Iran - Jana von Stein, The Australian National University

• Reforming Rebels: Access and Success of the United Nations Action Plans - Hyeran Jo, Texas A&M University

• Determining When and How Charges of Genocide are Used in Tribunals and the ICC - Patrick Larue, University of Texas at Dallas; Petra Hendrickson, Centre College

Chair

• Emilie Marie Hafner-Burton University of California, San Diego

Discussant

• Courtenay R. Conrad University of California, Merced