Abstract
In recent years, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have been in-creasingly willing to ratify United Nations human rights instruments. This article examines the underlying rationales for these ratifications and the limited range and drivers of subsequent domestic reforms post ratification. Drawing on both a quantitative analysis of engagement with the UN treaty bodies and Charter-based mechanisms in over 120 UN reports and qualitative interviews with over sixty-five government officials, members of civil society, National Human Rights Institutions, lawyers, and judges from all six states, this article argues that in the GCC states, UN human rights treaty ratification results from a desire to increase standing in the international community. Treaty ratification has limited effects driven by international socialization and cautious leadership preferences.
Highlights
The development of international human rights treaties has been the central multilateral effort of states in addressing human rights at the international level over the past sixty years.[1]
While general sets of factors driving ratification and domestic effects have been explored in the literature globally, little is known about what drives ratification and implementation of human rights treaties in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
In the case of general reservations, there was a gap of more than five years between the recommendation and reservation change,[109] with the change not coming until June 2008, and the Committee Against Torture called for removal of reservations in July 2006,110
Summary
The development of international human rights treaties has been the central multilateral effort of states in addressing human rights at the international level over the past sixty years.[1]. Small gains emerge after ratification as a combination of international socialization and GCC’s leaders’ cautious leadership preferences for domestic human rights reform To support these claims, the article employs an original qualitative dataset based upon interviews carried out in the region with diplomats, policy makers, judges, lawyers, and human rights activists. It is shown that while the GCC states’ ratification of, and engagement with, UN human rights treaties has increased over recent decades, domestic effects of treaty ratification are limited, and vary by country and issue area despite regime similarities.
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