While a multitude of instruments exists to monitor state adherence to international human rights obligations, the extent of their effectiveness in improving state compliance remains unclear.
VALENTINA CARRARO proposes and applies a model to assess the extent to which two United Nations human rights mechanisms – the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and the state reporting procedure of the treaty bodies – are perceived as capable of stimulating compliance with human rights, and why.
In an article titled ‘Promoting Compliance with Human Rights: The Performance of the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review and Treaty Bodies’ and published in the journal International Studies Quarterly, CARRARO does so by identifying a set of goals potentially achieved by these organizations – generating pressure, stimulating learning, providing an accurate overview of states’ performance, and delivering practically feasible recommendations – and testing the extent to which reaching these goals is seen to facilitate compliance with human rights.
She concludes that the treaty bodies’ perceived strength lies in providing states with learning opportunities and an accurate overview of their internal situations. In contrast, the UPR is deemed particularly strong in generating peer and public pressure on states.
CARRARO shows that, under certain conditions, the three main theoretical schools on compliance – enforcement, management, and constructivist – offer credible explanations for states’ performance in implementing human rights recommendations, with the enforcement school faring relatively better than the other two. Data were collected by means of forty semi-structured interviews and an online survey, targeting individuals directly involved in the two procedures.
The two mechanisms show differing scores when it comes to their ability to achieve these goals, the author notes. The UPR’s perceived strength lies in generating peer and public pressure. “The main explanation for the UPR’s ability in generating public pressure is to be found in the active role that NGOs play in the process, holding states accountable for the commitments they made in the review.”
Additionally, the bilateral nature of UPR recommendations creates a much higher pressure on states to live up to their commitments than in the case of recommendations by nongovernmental experts.
Conversely, treaty bodies fare better in providing accurate overviews of states’ internal situations and learning opportunities. This is largely due to the expert nature of their recommendations, which are seen as more objective and of a higher quality than in the UPR.
Finally, both reviews are successful in delivering feasible recommendations, although with a notable difference: while UPR recommendations are appreciated for being realistic (albeit often vague), Concluding Observations are praised for being very detailed, yet criticized for aiming at unattainable standards.
“From a policy perspective, these findings suggest that the UPR and treaty bodies could reinforce each other’s strengths by working more closely together,” CARRARO states. Reviewing states in the UPR could more systematically consult recommendations delivered by the treaty bodies before formulating their own recommendations.
Even though this already occurs in several instances, it would be beneficial to make it a structural part of the process. If UPR recommendations were more strongly based on Concluding Observations, they would preserve their political force while, at the same time, providing better guidelines for states, according to the author.
“Future research could highlight the extent to which the output of the UPR and treaty bodies is currently aligned, and the degree to which recommendations by one body inform those by the other.”
Valentina Carraro, Promoting Compliance with Human Rights: The Performance of the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review and Treaty Bodies, International Studies Quarterly, sqz078, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqz078
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