Article
In the absence of international enforcements and deterrents, why do nations comply with international human rights obligations?
Oona Hathaway, a fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, wonders why nations agree to be bound by human rights treaties in a period when the traditional rules on state sovereignty are under intense scrutiny.
Hathaway, a joint fellow with the Center for Ethics and the Professions, is developing a model of how the characteristics of a nation influence its decision to comply with international human rights laws.
As a student of the law, Hathaway points out that the question of why nations comply with international human rights treaties is a fundamental one.
"This is a puzzle for all students of international law and politics-and, indeed, for all those concerned about the humane treatment of citizens," she says.
Hathaway arrives well prepared for solving these legal and philosophical puzzles. A summa cum laude from Harvard and a Yale Law School graduate, she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. After Yale, she served as a judicial law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O''Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Her project uses the tools of international law, political economy, and rational choice theory to answer two questions: why do nations comply with human rights treaty law and why do nations comply with human rights customary law.
In the first instance, it seems that nations sign treaties when they believe that they will incur few costs. Deviations from this general rule occur where there has been a regime change, unanticipated domestic unrest, or miscalculation of the likelihood that a treaty would be enforced.
Deviations also occur where the executive holds a different ideology from the military or legislature. In those instances, a decision to sign a treaty might indicate an effort by the executive to use the international agreement to gain leverage in the domestic sphere.
In the second case, Hathaway hypothesizes that countries comply with Customary law because they derive reputational benefits that are beneficial both abroad and at home.
Countries may comply because they are under pressure from domestic interest groups to take steps towards advancing human rights, or they may comply in order to create law that would bind all nations, not simply those that have subscribed to the specific dictates of the treaty.
Also, nations with weak democratic regimes often comply to protect themselves against future threats to democratic governance at home and abroad (binding themselves to the mast, so to speak).
In the final stage of her study, Hathaway will examine the tension between customary law, which can require the invalidation of popularly chosen laws but does not itself have its roots in any democratic or representative institution, and legal legitimacy.