Seeking overlap and redundancy in human rights protection: reputation, consistency and the acceptance of the UN human rights treaties’ individual communications procedures

Abstract

ABSTRACT A common explanation for state acceptance of the optional individual communications procedures (ICPs) of UN human rights treaties involves costly signalling theory. Commitment to ICPs is said to enable states to signal sincere commitment more credibly. Such signalling, however, is not particularly costly and ultimately a reasonable motive for only a small number of states. For most states that accept ICPs, signalling bears no obvious instrumental value; for many, the global ICPs also overlap with existing and institutionally stronger human rights monitoring mechanisms at the regional level. This begs the question: Why do states seek such overlap and redundancy? Acknowledging the role of preferences for effective human rights protection, we suggest an additional reputational motive that foregrounds the value of consistency in commitments and related reputations. Employing survival analysis and data for six ICPs, we show that ICP acceptance is particularly driven by states that are also subject to institutionally stronger regional human rights courts. Given the marginal benefits in rights protection through adding overlap, we argue that the effects of consistent commitment on the perception of a state’s character provide a persuasive supplementary explanation.