Making and Breaking the International Social Contract Protecting Human Rights

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel investigates the consequences of states’ cooperation and non-cooperation in implementing and preserving the international social contract for protecting human rights. The running theme revolves around a common set of questions: Why do states negotiate and commit to international treaties? Under what circumstances do they withdraw their commitments and what is the impact of dropping out? Why do states cooperate to violate human rights or turn a blind eye to human rights violators? Three papers examine why and when states commit to international human rights treaties or cease to do so. Vilán explores the negotiation of a treaty prohibiting child marriage to understand why resistance to eliminating this practice persists to the present day. Garcia Iommi introduces the concept of ‘norm withdrawal’ as an overlooked dimension of contestation. She considers its potential positive and negative effects while applying her innovative framework to the analysis of states’ reservations to the CEDAW convention. Yildiz, Yüksel, and Elmas analyse the same subject matter from a different perspective; instead of focusing on the meaning and consequences of withdrawal, they focus on the role of disinformation campaigns run by countermovements that target women’s and LBGTQ rights to explain Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention. Two papers explore states’ (collective) role in overseeing the implementation or violating human rights. Elizalde looks at the reasons behind states’ engagement (or the lack of it) with the UPR, a UN monitoring mechanism that is the first universal peer-review. By focusing on transnational repression and compiling a new dataset, Medhi and Cordell develop and test a theory to explain what brings states together in carrying out human rights violations across national borders. The panel, overall, brings together interdisciplinary scholars who present new data and fresh perspectives on states’ role in upholding or breaking the international social contract for protecting human rights.

Sub Unit

• Division 45: Human Rights

Individual Presentations

• Exceptions, Competing Norms, and the Robustness of the Gender Equality Norm - Lucrecia Garcia Iommi, Fairfield University

• Disinformation Campaigns and Turkey’s Withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention - Umut Yüksel, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; Tugrulcan Elmas, Indiana University Bloomington; Ezgi Yildiz, California State University, Long Beach

• To Speak, or Not to Speak: The Theory and Practice of Silence in the UPR - Pilar Elizalde, Oxford University

• Transnational Repression: International Cooperation in Silencing Dissent - Rebecca Elizabeth Cordell, University of Pittsburgh; Kashmiri Medhi, The University of Texas at Dallas

• Space for Contestation: International Law’s Work in Human and Women’s Rights - Vanessa Pooudomsak, University of California - Los Angeles; Arthur A. Stein, UCLA

• Between Human Rights and Neoliberalism: The UN’s Balancing Act - Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat, University of Connecticut-Stamford

Chair

• Pilar Elizalde Oxford University

Discussants

• Ezgi Yildiz California State University, Long Beach

• Audrey Lynn Comstock Arizona State University