Strategic Shaming: How China Shapes International Human Rights Regime

• In Event: Poster Session: International Collaboration

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that the international human rights regime is politicized: despite upholding the normative standard, states review their allies’ human rights records less harshly than their adversaries’. What is a major power's strategic move after receiving a harsh peer review in the international human rights regime? I demonstrate that China, an example of a major power with little intent to comply with liberal-based norms, can use punishments to influence others’ reviews of its record. This tool seeks to bypass the human rights norm underlying the international monitoring system. Leveraging the time lag between sessions of the UN Universal Periodic Review, a recurring human rights monitoring institution, I show that China uses economic sanctions and reciprocal reviews to deter harsh reviewers. Under such undue pressure, countries economically dependent on China may give lenient reviews in return. I bring the major power and its interest back in uncovering how its subtle uses of power shape the micro-processes of states’ socialization in a normative international institution.

Author

• Lucie Lu, Princeton University