upr info - promoting compliance with human rights: the ......this article proposes and applies a...

International Studies Quarterly (2019) 0 1ndash15

Promoting Compliance with Human Rights The Performance of theUnited Nationsrsquo Universal Periodic Review and Treaty Bodies

VA L E N T I N A CA R R A R O

Maastricht University

What mechanisms facilitate state compliance with human rights This article proposes and applies a model to assess theextent to which two United Nations human rights mechanismsmdashthe Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and the state reportingprocedure of the treaty bodiesmdashare perceived as capable of stimulating compliance with human rights and why It does soby identifying a set of goals potentially achieved by these organizationsmdashgenerating pressure stimulating learning providingan accurate overview of statesrsquo performance and delivering practically feasible recommendationsmdashand testing the extent towhich reaching these goals is seen to facilitate compliance with human rights It concludes that the treaty bodiesrsquo perceivedstrength lies in providing states with learning opportunities and an accurate overview of their internal situations In contrastthe UPR is deemed particularly strong in generating peer and public pressure on states From a theoretical point of view thisarticle shows that under certain conditions the three main theoretical schools on compliancemdashenforcement managementand constructivistmdashoffer credible explanations for statesrsquo performance in implementing human rights recommendationswith the enforcement school faring relatively better than the other two Data were collected by means of forty semi-structuredinterviews and an online survey

Introduction

Monitoring statesrsquo compliance with international humanrights obligations is a highly complex task First althoughinternational organizations strongly rely on statesrsquo self-reporting in several cases of human rights breaches the ex-ecutive branches of states were the prime violators of thenorm why then would they provide information to theinternational organizations accepting the ensuing conclu-sions Second human rights violations do not normally havean impact on other states in contrast to other policy areassuch as pollution or trade For these reasons the rational in-centives for states to establish forceful human rights mech-anisms or to pressure each other into compliance are lowerthan in other policy domains (Underdal 1998 Risse Roppand Sikkink 1999 Dai 2002 Hathaway 2002 Hawkins 2004Simmons 2009 2010) Finally it is doubtful whether a com-mon normative framework allowing for a universal interpre-tation of human rights across regions and cultures existsat the global level (Samhat 1999 Donnelly 2007 Heywood2011 Jun 2015)

Relatedly there is a wide gap between statesrsquo inclinationto ratify international human rights treaties and their ac-tual compliance with those treaties (Avdeyeva 2007) Schol-ars thus wonder under what conditions states conform tointernational human rights standards and how they can beled to modify their policies in case of noncompliance Asfurther elaborated in this article the three main theoreti-cal schools on compliancemdashenforcement managerial andconstructivistmdashprovide different answers to these questions

A multitude of instruments to monitor state adherence tointernational human rights obligations exists A prominentplace is occupied by the United Nationsrsquo (UN) treaty bod-ies and Universal Periodic Review (UPR) two global mecha-

Valentina Carraro is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Faculty of Arts and So-cial Sciences at Maastricht University The Netherlands and a Rubicon ResearchFellow at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights in Vienna

Authorrsquos note Research for this article received funding by the Dutch ResearchCouncil (NWO - grant numbers 452-11-016 and 446-17-006)

nisms for assessing statesrsquo human rights performance Treatybodies are committees of independent experts monitoringstatesrsquo implementation of the ten major UN human rightstreaties One of their major tasks is to undertake the statereporting procedure during which state parties are evalu-ated on the implementation of their treaty obligations andreceive recommendations for improvement In contrast theUPR is a peer review where the assessment of statesrsquo humanrights performance is carried out by other states As in thetreaty bodies reviewed states receive a list of recommenda-tions for improvement

What remains unclear however is the extent to whichthese mechanisms are effective in improving state com-pliance with human rights and why While debates onreasons for state compliance with international obligationsabound in the literature assessing the performance of apublic organization is challenging as it requires isolatingthe role played by the organization in stimulating compli-ance from a variety of intervening factors such as otherbodies promoting the same standards This article followsthe steps laid down by Gutner and Thompson (2010)by acknowledging that assessing the performance of aninternational organization by only looking at its abilityto reach its ultimate goal (eg improving human rightson the ground) might prove misleading An organizationmight be successful in producing all necessary conditions tostimulate compliance and yet states might still be breach-ing international obligations due to a variety of otherreasons Hence the performance of organizations is bestassessed by studying what Gutner and Thompson (2010)term ldquoprocess-based performancerdquo namely the ability of anorganization to reach smaller-scale objectives which mightbe helpful towards the achievement of the overall goalsThis article takes this framework further by assessing theextent to which these smaller-scale objectives are seen asinstrumental in improving statesrsquo human rights complianceIt thus proposes and applies a model to assess the extent towhich human rights governance mechanismsmdashin this casethe UPR and the state reporting procedure of the treaty

Carraro Valentina (2019) Promoting Compliance with Human Rights The Performance of the United Nationsrsquo Universal Periodic Review and Treaty Bodies International StudiesQuarterly doi 101093isqsqz078copy The Author(s) (2019) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of theCreative Commons Attribution License (httpcreativecommonsorglicensesby40) which permits unrestricted reuse distribution and reproduction in any mediumprovided the original work is properly cited

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2 Promoting Compliance with Human Rights

bodiesmdashare perceived as capable of stimulating compliancewith human rights obligations and why

Concretely the goal of this article is twofold First itassesses the extent to which the UPR and the treaty bodiesare perceived to be successful in reaching certain outcomes(process-based performance) according to the actors thatare most directly involved in the review reviewed states andreviewers These outcomes as elaborated below are con-ceptualized as generating pressure stimulating learningproviding an accurate overview of statesrsquo performance anddelivering practically feasible recommendations Secondit examines the extent to which reaching these outcomesappears to facilitate state compliance with human rights

This article is structured as follows After providing someconcise background on the UPR and treaty bodies itpresents a conceptual discussion on compliance with in-ternational obligations and on process-based performanceThe article then studies the extent to which involved partic-ipants believe that these mechanisms are able to achieve acertain set of outcomes and the extent to which these out-comes are seen to facilitate compliance By doing so it notonly highlights the comparative strengths and weaknesses ofthe UPR and treaty bodies but also contributes to theoreti-cal debates on state compliance with international commit-ments Respondentsrsquo views were collected by means of fortysemi-structured interviews and an online survey

The article shows that the treaty bodies are successful atproviding accurate overviews of statesrsquo human rights per-formance as well as learning opportunities In contrastthe UPRrsquos main perceived strength lies in generating pres-sure on states Additionally both mechanisms are relativelycapable of delivering feasible recommendations From atheoretical standpoint this article shows that under differ-ent conditions the three main schools on compliancemdashenforcement management and constructivistmdashprovideplausible explanations for statesrsquo performance in imple-menting human rights recommendations although the en-forcement school holds the biggest explanatory power inthe cases studied in this article

The Treaty Bodies and the Universal Periodic Review

The UN treaty bodies were established to monitor and su-pervise statesrsquo implementation of the ten core UN treatieson human rights They are composed of committees of in-dependent experts elected by the state parties to the treatyTreaty bodies may perform a variety of tasks receiving peri-odic reports by states on the implementation of the treatydeciding on individual complaints for purported treaty vi-olations by a state party conducting country inquiries ifthey suspect that the state party has severely violated thetreaty and providing their interpretation of treaty provi-sions in documents called General Comments This arti-cle focuses exclusively on the state reporting procedure ar-guably the main function carried out by committees (Melish2009 OrsquoFlaherty and Tsai 2011 Flinterman 2015) and asdiscussed below whose procedural functioning is highly sim-ilar to the UPR1

The UPR was created in 2007 as part of a reform ofthe UN human rights machinery that culminated in theestablishment of the Human Rights Council of which theUPR is a part The UPR is a peer reviewmdashhence states as-sess each otherrsquos human rights performances alternating in

1 For additional information on treaty bodies see ldquoMonitoring the Core In-ternational Treatiesrdquo accessed November 14 2018 httpswwwohchrorgENHRBodiesPagesOverviewaspx

their roles as reviewers and reviewees States are reviewedevery four years on the basis of all the human rights obliga-tions they have undertaken2

The UPR and the state reporting procedure of the treatybodies are highly comparable in their functioning Both arebased on information provided by states in a self-assessmentreport complemented by the UN secretariat with additionalinformation from UN and non-UN sources On this basis re-viewers issue a set of recommendations for improvement Inthe treaty bodies this document is called Concluding Obser-vations while in the UPR recommendations are includedin the outcome report A key difference between these twomechanisms concerns the nature of the reviewing body inthe UPR reviewers are states whereas in the treaty bodiesthey are independent experts In addition while treaty bodyrecommendations are adopted by consensus UPR recom-mendations are exclusively attributed to the country issuingthem

Considering its recent establishment a notable amount ofliterature on the UPR is currently available The large major-ity of existing scholarship focuses on its functioning oftenby studying state behavior within the mechanism and on itspotential to add value to the global human rights landscape(Abraham 2007 Gaer 2007 Domiacutenguez-Redondo 2008Lilliebjerg 2008 Rathgeber 2008 Abebe 2009 Freedman2011 McMahon and Ascherio 2012 Cowan and Billaud2015) Some authors discuss the establishment of the UPRin a highly detailed manner (Alston 2006 Abraham 2007Gaer 2007 Freedman 2011 2013 McMahon and Ascherio2012) while others focus on its functioning for exampleby discussing the participation of certain (groups of) statessuch as African states (Abebe 2009 Smith 2014) or China(Smith 2011) or by highlighting the existence of naming-and-shaming (Terman and Voeten 2018) While scholars aredivided about the potential of the UPR to generate compli-ance (for an overview of this debate see Etone 2019) em-pirical work assessing the extent to which UPR recommen-dations are implemented is scarce Most of existing analyseshave been carried out by the Geneva-based nongovernmen-tal organization (NGO) UPR Info (UPR Info 2014 20162018) or consist of single case studies by practitioners (egRoesdahl 2017) Although UPR Info is positive concerningstatesrsquo implementation of recommendations its studies donot take into account possible intervening factors as alsopointed out by Elizalde (2019)

Academic accounts on the treaty bodies abound (Nowak1993 McGoldrick 1994 Alston and Crawford 2000 Bayefsky2001 Nowak and McArthur 2008 Bassiouni and Schabas2011 Keller and Ulfstein 2012b Alston and Goodman 2013Creamer and Simmons 2015) Works assessing their im-pact tend to focus on a selected number of cases and gen-erally show that recommendations are implemented onlyin some cases and with high variation across countries(see Heyns and Viljoen 2001 McQuigg 2011 Krommendijk2014a 2014b 2015) When scholars find a link betweentreaty bodies and policy change they generally argue thatthis impact derives from a favorable domestic context forexample treaty bodies are seen as instrumental in provid-ing opportunities for domestic actors to push for their pre-ferred policy outcomes (Krommendijk 2015 Creamer andSimmons 2019)

Few comparisons of the UPR and treaty bodies have beenundertaken so far Exceptions are work by Gaer (2007) and

2 For further information on the UPR see ldquoUniversal Periodic Reviewrdquoaccessed November 14 2018 httpswwwohchrorgenhrbodiesuprpagesuprmainaspx

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VA L E N T I N A CA R R A R O 3

Rodley (2012) who compare the two mechanisms and dis-cuss their potential for complementarity or duplication andby Carraro (2017) who studies the effects of politicizationon their ability to advance human rights This article aimsto broaden the debate on the UPR and treaty bodies by ex-plaining in a comparative manner their perceived ability tostimulate change

The Performance of International Organizations

Compliance with International Provisions

The reasons why states comply with international obliga-tions have long been debated (Franck 1990 Chayes andChayes 1995 Koh 1997 Downs 1998 Simmons 1998 2010Underdal 1998 Checkel 2001 2005 Checkel and Moravc-sik 2001 Johnston 2001 Dai 2002 2005 2006 2013) Somescholars argue that enforcement is essential for complianceDowns (1998) defines enforcement as

ldquoThe overall strategy that a State or a multilateraladopts to establish expectations in the minds of stateleaders and bureaucrats about the nature of the neg-ative consequences that will follow noncompliancerdquo(Downs 1998 321ndash2)

Deterrents for noncompliance could for example bepolitical pressure withdrawal of positive incentives oreconomic sanctions Compliance is seen as the result ofcost-benefit calculations influenced by incentives for goodperformance and tools to punish noncompliance In atypical prisonerrsquos dilemma situation benefits for a state areconceptualized as what that state can obtain by withdrawingits cooperation with for example a multilateral agreementwhile other states continue to comply with it If these ex-pected gains are high the threatened punishment must besufficiently severe to act as a deterrent for the state to defectfrom the agreement (Downs 1998) Actors are therefore as-sumed to act strategically with the goal of maximizing theirgains and minimizing their losses (Downs 1998 Checkel2001 Dai 2005) following what March and Olsen (1998)call the logic of anticipated consequences and prior preferences

Existing critiques of enforcement models center aroundtwo main concerns First some scholars claim that actorscannot foresee all the consequences of their actions (Marchand Olsen 1998) Second it is generally claimed that en-forcement models tend to ignore the processes leading tointerest formation preferences are assumed to be exoge-nously formed and there is no attention to the way suchpreferences evolve based on the context in which actors op-erate (March and Olsen 1998 Checkel 2001) Stemmingfrom these considerations constructivist scholars claim thatto explain compliance one has to focus on the processes thatlead to the formation of preferences and the construction ofidentities These processes are endogenous to the organiza-tions in which actors operate and take the form of sociallearning norm diffusion and socialization (Franck 1990Checkel 2001 2005 Checkel and Moravcsik 2001 Johnston2001) When explaining compliance from a constructiviststandpoint Checkel (2001) mentions that two mechanismsare at play On the one hand some argue that the roots ofcompliance with international obligations are to be foundin social mobilization according to this view compliance isnot exempt from cost-benefit calculations yet these calcula-tions are shaped by a process of norm diffusion that drivessocietal forces to put pressure on decision makers to con-form to these rules On the other hand some scholars arguethat compliance is the result of social learning and norm in-

ternalization (Checkel 2001) This follows what March andOlsen (1998) term the logic of appropriateness The modelis centered on the crucial role that institutions and normsplay in the construction of identities which in turn drivehuman behavior Actors are believed to make their choicesnot by following cost-benefit calculations but on the ba-sis of what they perceive to be appropriate behavior Rulesare therefore followed only to the extent that they are per-ceived to be legitimate and conforming to actorsrsquo identities(March and Olsen 1998) Persuasion and social learning arethus conducive to compliance by leading to a convergenceof statesrsquo preferences and behavior (Franck 1990 Checkel2001 2005 Checkel and Moravcsik 2001 Johnston 2001)

A third strand of compliance literature is that of the man-agement school (Chayes and Chayes 1995 Koh 1997) Inthis view states are generally committed to complying withinternational treaties because they dedicate time and re-sources in negotiating them Chayes and Chayes (1995 4)argue that compliance is the ldquonormal organizational pre-sumptionrdquo The fact that states signed an agreement meansthat they believed it was in line with their interests and thatthey acknowledge the legal obligation to comply with itStarting from these assumptions noncompliance will haveto be explained by factors such as treaty ambiguity or limita-tions in country capabilities Successful strategies to ensurecompliance will therefore include disseminating informa-tion on regime requirements providing practical supportto states and ultimately persuading noncomplying actorsto alter their course of action (Chayes and Chayes 1995)

While international cooperation in all fields of inter-national law presents its challenges human rights area particularly complex case as discussed above Despitethe increasing prevalence of international human rightstreaties posing legal obligations on states human rightsenforcement mechanisms are still lacking at the globallevel Whereas regional human rights judicial mechanismsexistmdashmost notably the European Court of Human Rightsthe Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the AfricanCourt on Human and Peoplesrsquo Rightsmdashno such parallelcourt can be found on a universal scale The only globalcourt dealing with human rights violations is the Interna-tional Criminal Court (ICC) but this only deals with grosshuman rights violations such as genocide and war crimes

The international systemmdashincluding although not lim-ited to the case of human rightsmdashthus heavily relies on vol-untary compliance Its fundamental premise is that stateswill deal with the enforcement of international humanrights provisions at the domestic level (Donoho 2006) Eventhough international institutions are often able to inducestates to complymdashfor example by exerting pressuremdashtheylack enforcement abilities as they are unable to ldquocompel di-rect consequences hellip under the threat of meaningful sanctionrdquo(Donoho 2006) As a consequence no global legally bindingenforcement mechanism exists that can hold states account-able for violating their international human rights obliga-tions (Forsythe 2009)

It is in this context that the existence of the UPR andtreaty bodies should be understood Whereas most states arereluctant to commit to coercive international oversight sys-tems their legally nonbinding nature3 is arguably the rea-son why they exist in the first place Yet lack of coercion

3 The legal status of Concluding Observations has been debated Despite thefact that the treaty obligations monitored by treaty bodies are legally binding it iswidely acknowledged that the recommendations issued in the state reporting pro-cedure impose no formal legal obligations on states (Donoho 2006 OrsquoFlaherty2006 Keller and Ulfstein 2012a)

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does not necessarily mean that these mechanisms are ir-relevant While their nonbinding nature implies that hardenforcement and coercion do not apply if we follow theenforcement model compliance might still be triggered byoutside pressure and naming-and-shaming or by fear of los-ing material advantages such as donor aid (Downs 1998)In a more constructivist vein the reviews might also leadstates to progressively internalize those norms adoptingthem as the ldquoright thing to dordquo (Checkel 2001 Finnemoreand Sikkink 2001) Countries finally might be willing tocomply yet lack the resources to do so (Chayes and Chayes1995)

The next subsection introduces the concept of process-based performance to provide a framework to assess theability of the UPR and treaty bodies to achieve a set of goalslinked to the different compliance schools This is done withthe aim of testing the extent to which reaching those goalsis instrumental in promoting statesrsquo implementation of thehuman rights recommendations received

Process-Based Performance

Gutner and Thompson (2010 236) stress the importanceof distinguishing between an organizationrsquos process perfor-mance and its outcome performance Whereas the outcomeperformance of an organization is identified by its abilityto solve a specific problemmdashin our case to improve statesrsquohuman rights recordmdashits process performance relates to itsability to reach what scholars call micro outcomes namely itsability to carry out specific tasks

Treaty bodies and the UPR work towards the achieve-ment of their ultimate goal by delivering recommenda-tions whose implementation by states would arguably leadto an improvement of their human rights performance (out-come performance) To reach the ultimate goal of policychange other more concrete and measurable results mightbe achieved by these mechanisms (process-based perfor-mance) Yet what would these micro results be concretelyAnd to what extent does the achievement of these resultscontribute to the outcome performance of these mecha-nisms A list of these possibly meaningful outcomes was de-veloped both inductively and by employing secondary liter-ature on soft governance mechanisms Each of these goals islinked here to the theoretical debate on compliance

The first result considered in this study is the exertionof pressure (Pagani 2002 Pagani and Wellen 2008 Carraroand Jongen 2018 Jongen 2018) Following the enforcementmodel a possible meaningful result of nonbinding mecha-nisms is the generation of pressure on states (Downs 1998)which might aid compliance for fear of material or reputa-tional losses Pressure can be exerted in several ways rang-ing from pressure on states to submit accurate and timelyreports to pressure for the follow-up of recommendationsIn addition pressure can be exerted by peers (particularlyin the case of peer reviews) as well as by the broader public

Second the article turns to these mechanismsrsquo ability totrigger learning (Pagani 2002 Lehtonen 2005 Tanaka 2008Smith 2011 Kaumllin 2012 Cowan and Billaud 2015 Carraroand Jongen 2018 Jongen 2018) in a more constructivistvein Indeed while reviews can be seen as sanctioning foraaimed at exposing countries to criticism (as in the enforce-ment model) they can also be viewed as nonconfrontationalmechanisms where the focus is on stimulating learning so-cializing states to the ldquorightrdquo approach in dealing with hu-man rights norms

Third this study focuses on the potential ability of reviewsto provide an accurate overview of statesrsquo human rights per-

Table 1 Possible outcomes and corresponding compliancemechanisms

Possible outcomes Compliance mechanism

Generating pressure Enforcement schoolTriggering learning Constructivist schoolProviding an accurate overview of

statesrsquo situationsConstructivistmanagerial

schoolsDelivering practically feasible

recommendationsManagerial school

formance (Pagani 2002 Lehtonen 2005 Rathgeber 2008Carraro and Jongen 2018 Jongen 2018) To achieve thisgoal the review output should adequately reflect the inter-nal human rights situation in the reviewed state highlight-ing all relevant human rights issues and suggesting areas forimprovement From both a managerial and constructivistperspective it is essential for reviewed states to be aware ofwhat areas need attention in order to devise the appropri-ate strategy to improve

The fourth potential result relates to the reviewsrsquo ability todeliver practically feasible recommendations (Ikhsan 2008Carraro and Jongen 2018 Jongen 2018) What is of interesthere is an assessment of whether recommendations deliv-ered in these mechanisms are perceived to be feasible andan understanding of what characteristics a recommendationshould have in order to be considered as such From a man-agerial perspective rule ambiguity is one of the most likelyculprits of poor rule implementation If these mechanismsare unable to provide clear guidelines for implementationhow can states take the correct actions

Table 1 summarizes the possible outcomes identifiedabove and the respective school of compliance with whichthey more closely align

As also stressed among others by Versluis and Tarr(2013) although compliance schools depart from distincttheoretical viewpoints the dynamics they highlight mightvery well be observed to work in combination empiricallyIn this article these categories are therefore employed asheuristic devices to study the extent to which each of theselogics is at play but they are not intended as mutually exclu-sive categories

Following the ldquoData Collection and Methodologyrdquo sec-tion this article first assesses the extent to which actors in-volved in the UPR and treaty bodies perceive that the reviewsare able to achieve these outcomes Second it turns to theirperceived capacity to reach the ultimate goal of improvinghuman rights on the ground and asks to what extent thiscan be considered a result of their (in)ability to achieve theoutcomes outlined above

Data Collection and Methodology

This study focuses on the views of actors who are directlyinvolved in the two mechanisms under study as either rep-resentatives of states under review or as reviewers In theUPR these are all the involved diplomatsmdashacting as revie-wees and reviewers in turnmdashwhereas in the treaty bodiesthese are the diplomats as reviewees and the independentexperts composing the reviewing committee

As also acknowledged by Gutner and Thompson eval-uating performance might wield different results depend-ing on who is conducting the analysis Performance as-sessments suffer from the ldquoeye of the beholder problemrdquo(Gutner and Thompson 2010 233) as different stakehold-ers (eg member states the wider public) are likely to hold

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different views In this light this article argues that focusingon the perceptions of directly involved actors is preferablefrom both a methodological and a theoretical point of viewMethodologically involved actors are the most suitable toprovide an accurate assessment of these mechanismsrsquo abilityto achieve certain outcomes Indeed most of the outcomesmeasured in this article cannot be subject to an external em-pirical measurement for example it would be impossible toobjectively establish by means of some external yardstickwhether the UPR is able to trigger learningmdashmuch morelogical is to ask directly involved actors whether they experi-ence that the UPR generates learning Similarly objectivelyassessing the ability of these instruments to generate com-pliance would be extremely challenging as it would requireisolating the role played by these instruments from a vari-ety of other intervening factors (Heyns and Viljoen 2001Krommendijk 2015) For example other international ornational actors may have been advocating the same goalsmaking it difficult to estimate the extent to which eachplayer caused the observed outcome In addition as ob-served in the earlier section ldquoThe Treaty Bodies and theUniversal Periodic Reviewrdquo the few existing scholarly worksstudying the implementation of UPR and treaty body rec-ommendations do so in a highly selected number of casesSuch an assessment would become even more difficult ina comparative study on the UPR and treaty bodiesmdashtwomechanisms with largely overlapping mandates and goalsmdashas is the present one Finally and from a more theoreticalperspective this article takes the position that these mecha-nisms can only be effective if participating actors believe intheir relevance Since recommendations cannot be legallyenforced for policy change to occur participants must takethe process seriously and must believe that these mecha-nisms can make a significant contribution (Donoho 2006Creamer and Simmons 2015) Conversely if involved actorswere to find these mechanisms meaningless they would beunlikely to invest the necessary time and resources requiredfor participating in the reviews and for implementing therecommendations Thus it is essential that both revieweesand reviewers regard these instruments as able to achieveconcrete results (also see Jongen 2018) In a similar lineof reasoning scholars studying the effectiveness of interna-tional organizations have argued for the importance of fac-tors such as socialization reputation and ideas as key driversof policy change (see for example Schmidt and Radaelli2004 Greenhill 2010 Hafner-Burton and Schneider 2019)moving beyond an exclusive focus on domestic implemen-tation to measure the effectiveness of an international or-ganization (Schmidt and Radaelli 2004) While this articledoes not claim that perceptions necessarily coincide with ac-tual levels of compliance nor does it argue against the im-portance of studies tracing the implementation of recom-mendations by international bodies it does argue for thereasons listed above that measuring perceptions is a moremethodologically viable alternative in the present case (alsosee Tompkins and Amundsen 2008) and one that providesimportant insights on factors facilitating compliance withrecommendations by human rights bodies

Such an approach focusing on the views of directlyinvolved actors comes with limitations A larger-scale studyfocusing on the views of additional actorsmdashfor instancegovernmental officials or NGOsmdashwould provide a more en-compassing overview of perceptions on these instrumentsNon-directly involved actors could either be more skepticalor conversely they might more strongly believe in theirappropriateness as they are not directly exposed to theirweaknesses However due to time and scope constraints

this article exclusively focuses on directly involved officialsfor two reasons First these officials know the mechanismsmore accurately and are therefore best suited to provide anassessment of their performance Second as the goal of thearticle is to compare the UPR and treaty bodies possiblebiases towards the Geneva-based mechanisms should notinfluence the respondentsrsquo ability to assess their strengthsand weaknesses comparatively

The survey and interviews first assessed the extent towhich respondents believe that the two mechanisms are ableto achieve the goals identified earlier Whereas survey re-spondents were provided with a list of possible outcomes(see Table 2) interviewees were asked to elaborate on theresults that they would see as most valuable All intervieweesrsquoanswers fit in the four pre-identified categories Method-ological considerations in terms of the survey and interviewscan be found in Annexes 1 and 2 respectively in the supple-mentary data archive

In a second step the extent to which these mechanismsstimulate compliance was measured exclusively by meansof interviews due to the complex nature of complianceFor the reasons discussed earlier in this section it is verydifficultmdashfor researchers and respondents alikemdashto assessthe extent to which each of the two mechanisms triggerspolicy change as this depends on a variety of factors unre-lated to the reviews Consequently interviews were chosenas the only data collection method in this regard as they al-lowed officials to explain and qualify their answers and tolink these results to the goals discussed above Intervieweesgenerally provided nuanced answers explaining the extentto which in different situations they believe that the mech-anisms are able to achieve such a goal

Assessing the Performance of the UPR and of the StateReporting Procedure of the Treaty Bodies

The Ability to Exert Pressure

Survey results show a marked difference between the twomechanisms in relation to their ability to generate pressureAs Figure 1 illustrates the majority of respondents believethat the UPR exerts peer pressure to a large extent or com-pletely Concerning the ability of the UPR to generatepublic pressure results are similar A majority ofrespondentsmdashalbeit slightly fewer than in the case ofpeer pressuremdashbelieve that the UPR is able to generatepublic pressure to a large extent or completely

In contrast as Figure 2 illustrates a majority of respon-dents believe that the treaty bodies are only to some extentable to generate public pressure or even not at all whileover a third believe that this is to a large extent or com-pletely the case

Interviews confirmed that most respondents believe theUPR is able to generate peer and public pressure on states(interviews 1ndash3 10ndash13 22 24 26 and 40) Concerning pub-lic pressure one of the major strengths of the UPR is iden-tified as the fact that NGOs are an essential part of the pro-cess even though they are not formally part of the reviewthey play an active role both in the information-collectionand the implementation phases exerting pressure on gov-ernments to live up to their commitments Even thoughtreaty bodies on paper are equally inclusive of civil soci-ety respondents believe that it is easier for NGOs to exertpressure in the UPR due to the fact that all UPR-relatedinformation is easily accessible including what specific rec-ommendations were accepted by states This in turn makes

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Table 2 Ability to achieve outcomes

Outcome to be achieved

Survey questionGenerally speaking to what extent do you believe that

the [UPR][Treaty Body (here TB) of reportedinvolvement] successfully Answer categories

Pressure Exerts state-to-state (peer) pressure (UPR) Not at allTo some extentToa large extentCompletelyIdo not know

Exerts public pressure (UPR and TB)Learning Triggers mutual learning (UPR)

Triggers learning (TB)Accurate overview Provides an accurate overview of reviewed statesrsquo

performance (UPR and TB)Practically feasible

recommendationsProvides practically feasible recommendations to

states (UPR and TB)

Note This question was only asked to UPR respondents as peer pressure is not a dimension relevant to the treaty bodiesrsquo expert-led reviews

Figure 1 Ability to exert pressuremdashUPRQuestion 1 Generally speaking to what extent do you believe that the UPR successfully exerts state-to-state (peer) pressureQuestion 2 Generally speaking to what extent do you believe that the UPR successfully exerts public pressure

it simpler for NGOs to pressure states into living up to theircommitments (interviews 3 8 10ndash13 24 and 26)

ldquoI think the UPR is in a way more inclusive [than thetreaty bodies] because you see that NGOs are activelyinvolvedhellip It is not a marked difference but in a waythe NGOsrsquo voice can be much better heard in the UPRcontext [because of its] publicityrdquo (interview 8)

Similarly the UPR is considered very successful ingenerating peer pressure Interviewees mentioned thatthe bilateral nature of the UPRmdashwhere recommenda-tions are delivered by one governmental representative toanothermdashincreases pressure on countries to follow up on

recommendations (interviews 1 2 10ndash13 22 24 26 and40) Finally in the case of both peer and public pressureinterviewees mentioned that the periodicity of the UPRadds a further layer of pressure as states must report backevery four years Reportedly government officials feel theneed to show their domestic and international audiences aswell as their colleague diplomats in the room that they havealready acted upon many of the recommendations receivedin the previous review (interviews 1 2 4 10ndash13 and 40)

Interviews confirmed that treaty bodies are able to gen-erate some pressure on states for compliance although toa limited extent (interviews 12 25 28 and 34ndash36) Report-edly it does happen that Concluding Observations are taken

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Figure 2 Ability to exert pressuremdashtreaty bodiesQuestion Generally speaking to what extent do you believe that the [TB of reported involvement] successfully exerts publicpressure

up by the media and the general public but this is perceivedto occur to a much more limited degree than in the UPROne interviewee for instance mentioned that a successful ex-ample of exertion of public pressure relates to the ldquoChicagopolice caserdquo where a former Chicago police chief was beingaccused of systematically employing torture as an interro-gation technique The matter was discussed during the ex-amination of the United Statesrsquo report by the CommitteeAgainst Torture in 2006 and according to the intervieweeldquobecause that case was mentioned in the Concluding Ob-servationshellipthe pressure was so strong that he actually wasinvestigated and then convictedrdquo (interview 25)

The Ability to Trigger Learning

Survey results show that the UPR is only partially able to trig-ger learning As Figure 3 illustrates a majority of respon-dents believe that the UPR successfully triggers (mutual)learning only to some extent or not at all although over 40percent of respondents find this to occur to a large extentor completely Only slightly more positive are the results forthe treaty bodies as opinions are strongly divided the ma-jority of respondents believe that learning occurs to a largeextent or completely although a substantial proportion ofrespondents believes that it only occurs to some extent ornot at all

Interestingly no interviewee mentioned learning as oneof the successful outcomes of the UPR Even though inter-viewees refer to the UPR as a constructive exercise (inter-views 1 2 3 8 and 12) learning and the exchange of bestpractices were not mentioned as playing any substantial roleFinally interviewees mentioned that the UPR is equally un-able to trigger external assistance in the implementation ofrecommendations (interviews 10 and 11) which could inturn lead to indirect learning

In a somewhat more positive light interviewees reportedthat treaty bodies are relatively successful in triggering learn-

ing albeit often in an indirect way (interviews 12 27 34 and39) Specifically it was argued that treaty bodies can bring avaluable contribution when it comes to stimulating domesticdialogue and changing the way audiences talk about certainissues (interviews 27 and 34)

People underestimate the role that the treaty bodieshave in changing hellip the semantics of discussions sim-ple things like talking about persons with a disabilityas exactly that persons with a disability rather thanwhat was almost universally accepted terminology justa decade ago hellip where the reference would be to adisabled or handicapped person (Interview 27)

The Ability to Provide an Accurate Overview of Reviewed StatesrsquoPerformance

Survey results show mixed views on the capacity of theUPR to provide an accurate overview of statesrsquo perfor-mance Figure 4 shows that half of respondents believe thatthe UPR achieves this result to a large extent or completelyhowever the other half believe this to be the case only tosome extent or not at all Treaty bodies are remarkablymore successful a substantial majority of respondents be-lieve that they achieve this goal to a large extent or evencompletely about a quarter believe that this occurs only tosome extent and no one finds this is not the case

Interviewees expressed criticism concerning the abilityof the UPR to provide an accurate overview of statesrsquoperformance While most recommendations are judgedto be objective and well informed others are reportedlypolitically motivated or stemming from unfamiliarity withreviewed countries (interviews 1ndash4 6 8 and 12) As aconsequence by looking at the list of recommendations itis not always possible to identify the level of human rightsviolations in a country nor what the serious areas of con-cern are As an interviewee put it ldquoyou will have the same

Dow





Figure 3 Ability to trigger learningQuestion UPR Generally speaking to what extent do you believe that the UPR successfully triggers mutual learningQuestion TB Generally speaking to what extent do you believe that the [TB of reported involvement] successfully triggerslearning

country praised and criticizedrdquo (interview 8) Interestinglyparticipantsrsquo perceptions are partially in contradiction withfindings by Rathgeber (2008) whomdashon the basis of his ownobservationsmdashargued that the output of the mechanismsuccessfully depicts statesrsquo internal human rights situations

The situation appears markedly more positive in thetreaty bodies as recommendations are considered to bemuch more objective and of a higher quality than those inthe UPR (interviews 4 6 16 25 and 30) An intervieweeprovided an interesting example on the subject

You take [the UPR outcome reports of] Finland andChina You remove the nameshellipand you give it topeople and you say hellip ldquotell me which country doyou think is more respectful of human rights thanthe otherrdquo and then you see the answer [will notcorrespond to expectations] But if you do the sameexercise with Concluding Observations there youcan see the one [which is most respectful of humanrights] (Interview 25)

These results highlight the main perceived weakness ofthe UPR when compared with the treaty bodies As previousstudies have argued (Freedman 2011 Carraro 2017 Termanand Voeten 2018) political relations play a crucial role indetermining the content and harshness of the recommen-dations received by states This in turn reportedly damagesthe credibility of the UPR as it shows that some countriesreceive a much more lenient treatment than their humanrights record would warrant Whereas these dynamics arealso partially present in the treaty bodies in the UPR theytake place to a much larger extent (Carraro 2017)

The Ability to Deliver Practically Feasible Recommendations

As Figure 5 illustrates survey results are relatively positivewith regard to both mechanismsrsquo ability to deliver practi-cally feasible recommendations A majority of respondentsbelieve that the UPR is to a large extent or completely ableto do so although almost half of respondents believe this tobe the case only to some extent Treaty bodies score evenmore positively a clear majority of respondents believe thatpractically feasible recommendations are provided to a largeextent or completely while about a third of respondents be-lieve this to be the case only to some extent or not at all4

Interviewees were first asked to discuss what constitutesa practically feasible recommendation in their opinion (in-terviews 6 7 10ndash13 16 23 29 34 and 40) Their views canbe summarized into three main points First recommenda-tions should be specific and measurable outlining the stepsthat countries should take toward implementation For ex-ample a recommendation that asks the state party ldquoto domore to reduce poverty levelsrdquo can be made implementableif it is accompanied by ldquothe state party should within twoyears have commissioned and finalized a report looking atthe obstacles to poverty reductionrdquo (interview 29) Secondrecommendations should take into account a clear time-line what can realistically be achieved by the next reviewThird recommendations should show awareness of coun-triesrsquo internal situations and of what progress they can be

4 Responses varied between committee members and diplomats with com-mittee members holding more positive views Treaty bodies are deemed to deliverpractically feasible recommendations completely by 163 percent of committeemembers and 10 percent of diplomats to a large extent by 605 percent of com-mittee members and 433 percent of diplomats to some extent by 209 percent ofcommittee members and 433 percent of diplomats and not at all by 0 percent ofcommittee members and 33 percent of diplomats

Dow





Figure 4 Ability to provide an accurate overviewQuestion UPR Generally speaking to what extent do you believe that the UPR successfully provides an accurate overview ofreviewed statesrsquo performanceQuestion TB Generally speaking to what extent do you believe that the [TB of reported involvement] successfully providesan accurate overview of reviewed statesrsquo performance

reasonably expected to make In sum interviewees believethat practically feasible recommendations are (1) specificand measurable (2) achievable within a specific timeframeand (3) able to take into account the national context ofreviewed states

As concerns the ability of the mechanisms to deliverpractically feasible recommendations the majority of UPRrecommendations are considered to be rather generalInterviewees often mentioned that this is one of the char-acterizing features of the UPR where soft broad recom-mendations represent the large majority as compared withspecific ones (interviews 1 4 5 8 10ndash13 24 and 38ndash40)When analyzing UPR recommendations this indeed seemsto be the case The NGO UPR Info publishes a databasecontaining a record of all recommendations issued in theUPR and divides them into five different action categories(1) minimal action (2) continuing action (3) consideringaction (4) general action and (5) specific action Recom-mendations in categories 1 2 and 3 are extremely minorand encouraging category 4 recommendations are verygeneral whereas category 5 recommendations are veryspecific A total of 46584 recommendations were issuedfrom the first UPR session up to May 20165 Of these4086 percent requested minimal or general action 2502percent were related to continuing or considering actionwhereas 3412 percent requested specific action Thesedata therefore empirically confirm that nonspecific recom-mendations represent the large majority in the UPR Thisfalls in line with findings presented in the subsection ldquoThe

5 The month when data collection was concluded The database is accessibleat httpswwwupr-infoorgdatabase

Ability to Provide an Accurate Overview of Reviewed StatesrsquoPerformancerdquo which showed that the UPR is not deemedsuccessful in providing an accurate overview of country per-formances The tendency of UPR states to deliver generalrecommendations points in the same direction as overallstates seem reluctant to criticize each other too harshly toavoid jeopardizing their diplomatic relations (interviews1ndash5 8 10ndash13 24 25 39 and 40)

Some interviewees however acknowledged that onseveral occasions UPR recommendationsmdashalthoughgeneralmdashare at least realistic This is because recommen-dations take into account the starting situation of reviewedstate considering what is feasible for the country to achieveboth within the timeframe of the upcoming review and withregard to its internal capacities (interviews 3 6 7 26 and40) Thus while UPR recommendations do not fare well onthe first point namely specificity they perform much betterwhen it comes to the second and third points as they takeinto account what can be realistically achieved by the statein question in the timeframe of the upcoming review

Interviews show the opposite picture for the treaty bod-ies Concluding Observations are generally praised for theirhigh specificity and criticized for being unrealistic (inter-views 2 6 10ndash12 16 25ndash28 30 38 and 39) Indeed bylooking at Concluding Observations one can clearly ob-serve their very specific and detailed nature6 Respondentsconsider this to be highly positive as recommendations arereportedly successful in guiding states toward implementa-tion (interviews 6 16 25 26 28 38 and 39) Yet they are

6 Concluding Observations are accessible at httpstbinternetohchrorg_layoutstreatybodyexternalTBSearchaspxLang=en

Dow





Figure 5 Ability to deliver feasible recommendationsQuestion UPR Generally speaking to what extent do you believe that the UPR successfully provides practically feasiblerecommendations to statesQuestion TB Generally speaking to what extent do you believe that the [TB of reported involvement] successfully providespractically feasible recommendations to states

often deemed by interviewees to aim at excessively ambi-tious goals which are not realistic when taking into accountcountry capabilities Respondents criticized treaty bodies foraiming at an unachievable ideal of perfection which createsfrustration in state representatives (interviews 2 6 10ndash1227 and 30)

Compliance with Human Rights

The Ability to Generate Compliance with Human Rights

The section above showed that both treaty bodies and theUPR have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to theirability to achieve certain outcomes The major perceivedstrength of the UPR lies in its capacity to trigger pres-sure on which the treaty bodies fare rather poorly Con-versely treaty bodies are mostly appreciated for providingaccurate overviews of reviewed statesrsquo performances andlearning opportunities on which the UPR scores lower Fi-nally both appear quite successful in providing states withpractically feasible recommendations The current sectionqualitatively investigates the degree to which the UPR andtreaty bodies are deemed able to stimulate compliance withrecommendations It further assesses the extent to whichreaching the outcomes identified above is instrumental forcompliance

First interviewees commented that to improve humanrights domestically these mechanisms should guide statestoward implementation providing clear guidelines Thisgoal is to be achieved via the formulation of clear and prac-tically feasible recommendations (interviews 6 7 10ndash13 1623 29 34 and 40) In this sense the results presented aboveshow that both the UPR and treaty bodies fare relatively wellwith the treaty bodies being slightly more successful

However unsurprisingly interviewees stressed that policychange is ultimately dependent on statesrsquo willingness to im-prove (interviews 2 4 5 7 9ndash11 16 and 39) If such willing-ness is not present no mechanism will be able to produceresults In this light the UPR is seen as a helpful tool toprovide an extra incentive for states to improve their stan-dards due to its ability to trigger pressure Improvementmust however be seen as a process In some cases this couldmean bringing a formerly closed-off state to at least publiclydiscuss their human rights situation

The DPRK [Democratic Peoplersquos Republic of Korea] isa positive examplehellipIn the first cycle the DPRK didnrsquotwant to accept any of the recommendations even theydidnrsquot want to cooperate hellip Coming this year the sec-ond cycle from DPRK in the UPR they have accepted[over one hundred recommendations] This is hugeprogress (Interview 9)

Dow





In other instances the UPR reportedly produces tangibleresults (interviews 2 4 5 7 and 39) Interviewees men-tioned that when revising the implementation of previousrecommendations they observed concrete improvementin many member states (interviews 2 and 39) The UPR isgenerally seen as the ldquoextra pushhellipthe political move thatmakes it happenrdquo (interview 39) Even though it is admit-tedly impossible to understand whether the cause of suchpolicy developments is really the UPR or any other bodysome respondents believe that it is likely the combinationof all these mechanisms that triggers change (interviews 2and 39)

It is more about adding the recommendations if youhave one single recommendation on one topic youcan say it is just an erroneous assessment but when ev-erything starts to add [up] meaning a committee rec-ommended UPR recommended a special rapporteurrecommended it your own civil society has identifiedthat as a problemhellipthe sum of all these different ele-ments will be able to have an impact on the ground(Interview 2)

In the absence of political pressure the improvement ofhuman rights domestic situations is in the treaty bodieseven more dependent on statesrsquo will If states are not al-ready inclined toward improving their performance there isnothing that committees can do (interviews 5 7 16 25 2729 35 36 and 38) When states are committed to improv-ing however treaty bodies provide guidance and specificadvice on the steps to be taken Many interviewees recalledinstances in which it could reasonably be assumed that pol-icy change happened as a direct consequence of treaty bodyrecommendations or as a consequence of treaty body rec-ommendations adding up to advice received in the contextof other human rights mechanisms (interviews 2 8 16 2527 29 34ndash36 and 38) One respondent mentioned the ex-ample of Angola where a law combating violence againstwomen was adopted shortly after a recommendation by theHuman Rights Committee on the subject and where sev-eral local stakeholders reportedly confirmed that there wasa direct causal effect between the recommendation and theadoption of that law (interview 38) Treaty bodies might alsobe considered to have an impact on improving the humanrights situation by stimulating dialogue between differentactors within a country (interviews 27 and 34)

Moreover albeit their ability to generate pressure is lim-ited treaty bodies are reportedly successful in strengtheningcertain claims made by civil society or other actors (inter-views 25 and 34ndash36) ldquoSometimes what treaty bodies [recom-mend is accomplished]hellipbecause it then became availableas a legitimate credible objective recommendation that waspicked up by someone with powerrdquo (interview 36) Thesefindings fall in line with those by Krommendijk (2014b2015) and Creamer and Simmons (2018 2019) who stressthat Concluding Observations are most effective when do-mestic actors push governments to act upon them

Interestingly pressure in the UPR does not seem tobecome a confrontational form of ldquonaming-and-shamingrdquowhile undoubtedly the UPR does ldquonamerdquo and ldquoshamerdquotransgressors this is done within the framework of a highlyconstructive mechanism where states often avoid being ex-cessively harsh with each other (interviews 1 4 5 7 810ndash13 23ndash25 39 and 40) In this sense treaty bodiesmdashcomposed of nongovernmental expertsmdashmay be more will-ing to engage in ldquonaming-and-shamingrdquo activities (also seeCreamer and Simmons 2013 Kahn-Nisser 2018) However

their limited political powermdashas discussed earliermdashmakestheir naming-and-shaming less visible and politically com-pelling for states

Discussion of Results in Light of Existing Compliance Theories

What can we learn from this in the context of the debateon state compliance with international law From a man-agerial perspective states are naturally inclined toward com-pliance and defection will have to be explained by factorsother than statesrsquo lack of willingness Hence compliance isfacilitated by providing states with the tools to address theproblems they are facing (Chayes and Chayes 1995) Thisarticle shows that the provision of practically feasible rec-ommendations is considered by interviewees as an impor-tant feature and that recommendations are considered attheir most helpful when they are realistic specific and mea-surable In this sense whereas both treaty bodies and theUPR present different strengths and weaknesses treaty bod-ies appear to be better equipped in providing guidelines tostates on how to proceed with implementation Additionallythey are more successful than the UPR in providing an accu-rate overview of statesrsquo performance which is instrumentalin helping states understand how to tackle implementationFrom a managerial perspective therefore treaty bodies arebetter suited at providing states with the instruments theyneed to bring their performance up to standard

Moreover treaty bodies appear to be better able to stimu-late learning helping states to understand where their prob-lems lie and how to tackle them From a constructivist view-point providing states with learning opportunities is crucialto ensure compliance states become socialized with the bestway to approach certain problems and eventually learn therules of the game This in turn will lead states to respectinghuman rights provisions as the ldquoright thing to dordquo ratherthan for fear of repercussions (Checkel 2001 Finnemoreand Sikkink 2001) Thus also from a constructivist point ofview treaty bodies are better able to guide states toward com-pliance As Creamer and Simmons (2018) argue the mainimpact of treaty bodies is not to be found as a direct con-sequence of a given reporting cycle ldquoIt was never intendedor designed to affect rights practices through a single re-port submissionrdquo (Creamer and Simmons 2018 47) Ratherthe authors continue it is the constant process of engagingwith the reporting procedure that brings forward change(Creamer and Simmons 2018 2019) Similarly Heyns andViljoen (2001) stress that the impact of the treaties derivesfrom shaping national understandings of what human rightsare rather than from the specific activities undertaken bytreaty bodies

Yet this article also showed that while treaty bodies offerstates the best tools for improvement this only works whenstates are sincerely willing to change Helping states to com-ply by means of learning and providing clear guidelines isnot sufficient when political willingness is lacking Findingsby Heyns and Viljoen (2001) support this argument as thescholars conclude that states that are sincerely committed toparticipating in the treaty bodies will benefit from reportingin contrast the system seems to have no impact on states thatdo not engage meaningfully with it When states need an ex-tra push toward implementation the UPR is better at apply-ing political pressure on reluctant states motivating themto comply even if they would otherwise not have done so Inthis light the enforcement logic seems to be better able toexplain compliance in the case of states that are not inclinedtowards implementation in the first place

Dow





As discussed earlier overall states are reluctant to agreeto ldquohardrdquo enforcement mechanisms at the global level par-ticularly in the case of human rights hence global humanrights instruments are generally not endowed with coercivepowers Still this article reveals that lack of coercion doesnot necessarily lead to ineffectiveness it rather shows thatdifferent mechanisms for compliance under certain condi-tions and to different extents are relevant to explain statesrsquoperformance While it appears unrealistic to assume that allstates are inclined towards compliance it is certainly truethat when that is the case countries need support to im-prove their record To this aim treaty bodies appear to bethe most suitable instrument By providing willing states withspecific recommendations and an accurate overview of theirown performance they offer them the tools to increase theirabidance to human rights provisions In addition previousstudies suggest that the mere fact of engaging in report-ing procedures may lead to domestic mobilization and so-cialization revealing that the impact of these proceduresgoes beyond that of the specific reporting cycle (Heyns andViljoen 2001 Creamer and Simmons 2018 2019) Yet thisarticle also showed that states are often uninterested or un-willing to improve without further incentives In this re-gard the UPR is seen as more successful in providing extraincentives for countries to comply with recommendationsmainly due to its perceived ability to generate pressuremdashunlike the treaty bodies Indeed when states are committedto improving their human rights record they will take bothmechanisms very seriously (interviews 3 22 24 27 and 30)Nonetheless when such willingness is limited the ability ofthe UPR to pressure states is a crucial factor in pushing themtoward implementation in line with arguments by the en-forcement school (Downs 1998)

The UPRrsquos higher performance from an enforcementschool point of view can be further explained by the factthat recommendations are not endorsed by all UN statesparticipating in the review but are exclusively attributedto the country issuing them Hence they take the form ofbilateral recommendations which has strong political im-plications accepted UPR recommendations become polit-ical commitments between countries Although many rec-ommendations are reportedly issued for political reasonsrather than out of human rights considerations the resultis that commitments are more likely to be adhered to thanwould be the case in a less political mechanism (interviews1ndash4 8 22 24ndash28 30 34 38 and 39) This is logically evenmore the case when recommendations are delivered by acountry with whom the reviewed state aims to maintain posi-tive diplomatic relations (also see Carraro 2017 Terman andVoeten 2018) As put by a respondent ldquoIt is so difficult toreject a recommendation because after each recommenda-tion in the parenthesis you have the name of the countrythat made the recommendationrdquo (interview 22)

Such dynamics are perceived to be lacking in the treatybodies where much less political pressure is put on statesto comply ldquoIt might be easier to reject a recommendationmade by an expert than by a country because it is a countrybehind that recommendation it is Germany it is the USArdquo(interview 22) Similarly Krommendijk (2015) finds that inthe treaty bodies international pressure alone is certainlyhelpful yet not sufficient to ensure states will comply withthe recommendations received

Thus as neither of the two mechanismsrsquo recommenda-tions can be legally enforced it is up to individual states todecide whether they will implement them The political na-ture of the UPR raises the stakes for noncompliance andwhile this does not ensure implementation it is perceived

to at least make it more likely To sum this up in an intervie-weersquos words

If you are a very hellip committed human rights govern-ment you will take human rights treaty bodies very se-riously probably more than the UPR but if you arenot a very human rights-oriented government whichis the majority in the world [you will take] the treatybody hellip as an exercise which is sort of academic andyou will forget about it the moment you leave theroom whereas with the UPR you will not because itbecomes political (Interview 24)

Conclusions

This article proposed and applied a model to assess the per-formance of two UN human rights mechanisms the UPRand the state reporting procedure of the treaty bodies Itdid so by studying their process performance namely theirability to achieve a set of goals that might eventually lead tostatesrsquo implementation of human rights recommendationsSubsequently it evaluated whether these reviewsrsquo ability totrigger compliance is seen to derive from their capacity toachieve such goals Data were collected by means of fortysemi-structured interviews and an online survey targetingindividuals directly involved in the two procedures

The article identified four outcomes that these mecha-nisms might reach generating pressure triggering learningproviding an accurate overview of statesrsquo performance anddelivering practically feasible recommendations The twomechanisms show differing scores when it comes to theirability to achieve these goals The UPRrsquos perceived strengthlies in generating peer and public pressure The main expla-nation for the UPRrsquos ability in generating public pressure isto be found in the active role that NGOs play in the processholding states accountable for the commitments they madein the review Additionally the bilateral nature of UPR rec-ommendations creates a much higher pressure on states tolive up to their commitments than in the case of recommen-dations by nongovernmental experts Conversely treaty bod-ies fare better in providing accurate overviews of statesrsquo in-ternal situations and learning opportunities This is largelydue to the expert nature of their recommendations whichare seen as more objective and of a higher quality than inthe UPR Finally both reviews are successful in deliveringfeasible recommendations although with a notable differ-ence while UPR recommendations are appreciated for be-ing realistic (albeit often vague) Concluding Observationsare praised for being very detailed yet criticized for aimingat unattainable standards

This article contributes to debates on state com-pliance with international provisions by showing thatunder certain conditions the three main theoreticalschools on compliancemdashenforcement management andconstructivistmdashoffer credible explanations for statesrsquo perfor-mance in implementing human rights recommendationsalthough the enforcement school fares better than theother two Managerial scholars are correct in claiming thatstates inclined toward compliance might need tools to cor-rectly implement the recommendations received In thislight when states are provided with an accurate overviewof their internal challenges and receive instructions on howto tackle them compliance is likely to improve Similarlyin a more constructivist vein states might still need to fa-miliarize themselves with the rules of appropriate behaviorand be exposed to a learning-stimulating environment Inboth cases treaty bodies appear to be a highly appropriate

Dow





instrument to achieve those goals However it also occursthat states are not willing to implement the recommenda-tions received without an extra push This push can be repu-tational or due to concern for more material consequencessuch as missing out on trade deals In this case followingan enforcement logic the UPR is a more adequate instru-ment to provide states with incentives for compliance due toits highly political nature where recommendations becomepolitical commitments between countries

From a policy perspective these findings suggest thatthe UPR and treaty bodies could reinforce each otherrsquosstrengths by working more closely together Reviewing statesin the UPR could more systematically consult recommen-dations delivered by the treaty bodies before formulatingtheir own recommendations7 Even though this already oc-curs in several instances it would be beneficial to makeit a structural part of the process If UPR recommenda-tions were more strongly based on Concluding Observa-tions they would preserve their political force while at thesame time providing better guidelines for states Future re-search could highlight the extent to which the output of theUPR and treaty bodies is currently aligned and the degreeto which recommendations by one body inform those bythe other

Supplementary Information

Supplementary information is available at the InternationalStudies Quarterly data archive

AcknowledgmentsThe idea to write this article was inspired by discussions withTannelie Blom Elissaveta Radulova and Alexander Strelkovall of whom the author warmly thanks For highly helpfulfeedback and suggestions the author is grateful to ThomasConzelmann Rosa Freedman Hortense Jongen ManfredNowak Sophie Vanhoonacker and Esther Versluis as wellas the three anonymous reviewers and International StudiesQuarterly Editorial Team Ian Lovering and Vera Karagian-nidou provided invaluable research assistance

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ABRAHAM MEGHNA 2007 Building the New Human Rights Council Outcome andAnalysis of the Institution Building Year Dialogue on Globalization Occa-sional Papers 332007 Vol 33 Berlin Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

ALSTON PHILIP 2006 ldquoReconceiving the UN Human Rights Regime Chal-lenges Confronting the New UN Human Rights Councilrdquo MelbourneJournal of International Law 7 186ndash224

ALSTON PHILIP AND JAMES CRAWFORD 2000 The Future of UN Human RightsTreaty Monitoring Cambridge Cambridge University Press

ALSTON PHILIP AND RYAN GOODMAN 2013 International Human Rights OxfordOxford University Press

AVDEYEVA OLGA 2007 ldquoWhen Do States Comply with International TreatiesPolicies on Violence Against Women in Post-Communist CountriesrdquoInternational Studies Quarterly 51 877ndash900

7 It is of course true that not all states take part in the state reporting proce-dure of the treaty bodies either because they are not parties to specific treaties ormost notably because they do not submit their reports when required tomdashindeed37 percent of all reports were overdue as of January 2016 (United Nations 2016)Still existing Concluding Observations provide in most cases a wealth of materialthat could be more systematically employed in the UPR

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BAYEFSKY ANNE F 2001 The UN Human Rights Treaty System The HagueKluwer Law International

CARRARO VALENTINA 2017 ldquoThe United Nations Treaty Bodies andUniversal Periodic Review Advancing Human Rights by PreventingPoliticizationrdquo Human Rights Quarterly 39 (4) 943ndash70

CARRARO VALENTINA AND HORTENSE JONGEN 2018 ldquoLeaving the Doors Open orKeeping Them Closed The Impact of Transparency on the Authorityof Peer Reviews in International Organizationsrdquo Global Governance 24(4) 615ndash35

CHAYES ABRAM AND ANTONIA CHAYES 1995 The New Sovereignty CambridgeMA and London Harvard University Press

CHECKEL JEFFREY T 2001 ldquoWhy Comply Social Learning and European Iden-tity Changerdquo International Organization 55 (3) 553ndash88

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CHECKEL JEFFREY T AND ANDREW MORAVCSIK 2001 ldquoA Constructivist ResearchProgram in EU Studiesrdquo European Union Politics 2 (2) 219ndash49

COWAN JANE K AND JULIE BILLAUD 2015 ldquoBetween Learning and SchoolingThe Politics of Human Rights Monitoring at the Universal PeriodicReviewrdquo Third World Quarterly 36 (6) 1175ndash90

CREAMER COSETTE D AND BETH A SIMMONS 2013 ldquoTransparency At HomeHow Well Do Governments Share Human Rights Information with Cit-izensrdquo In Transparency in International Law edited by Andrea Bianchiand Anne Peters 239ndash68 Cambridge Cambridge University Press

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mdashmdashmdash 2018 ldquoThe Dynamic Impact of Periodic Review on Womenrsquos RightsrdquoLaw and Contemporary Problems 81 (4) 31ndash72

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DAI XINYUAN 2002 ldquoInformation Systems in Treaty Regimesrdquo World Politics54 (4) 405ndash46

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DONNELLY JACK 2007 ldquoThe Relative Universality of Human Rightsrdquo HumanRights Quarterly 29 (2) 281ndash306

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DOWNS GEORGE W 1998 ldquoEnforcement and the Evolution of CooperationrdquoMichigan Journal of International Law 19 (2) 319ndash44

ELIZALDE PILAR 2019 ldquoA Horizontal Pathway to Impact An Assessmentof the Universal Periodic Review At 10rdquo In Contesting Human Rightsedited by Alison Brysk and Michael Stohl 83ndash106 Cheltenham andNorthampton MA Edward Elgar Publishing

ETONE DAMIAN 2019 ldquoTheoretical Challenges to Understanding the Poten-tial Impact of the Universal Periodic Review Mechanism RevisitingTheoretical Approaches to State Human Rights Compliancerdquo Journalof Human Rights 18 (1) 36ndash56

FINNEMORE M AND KATHRYN SIKKINK 2001 ldquoTaking Stock The ConstructivistResearch Program in International Relations and Comparative Poli-ticsrdquo Annual Review of Political Science 4 (1) 391ndash416

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Dow





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GAER FELICE D 2007 ldquoA Voice Not an Echo Universal Periodic Reviewand the UN Treaty Body Systemrdquo Human Rights Law Review 7 (1)109ndash39

GREENHILL BRIAN 2010 ldquoThe Company You Keep International Socializa-tion and the Diffusion of Human Rights Normsrdquo International StudiesQuarterly 54 (1) 127ndash45

GUTNER TAMAR AND ALEXANDER THOMPSON 2010 ldquoThe Politics of IO Perfor-mance A Frameworkrdquo The Review of International Organizations 5 (3)227ndash48

HAFNER-BURTON EMILIE M AND CHRISTINA J SCHNEIDER 2019 ldquoThe CompanyYou Keep International Organizations and the Reputational Effects ofMembershiprdquo AJIL Unbound 113 242ndash6

HATHAWAY OOONA A 2002 ldquoDo Human Rights Treaties Make a DifferencerdquoYale Law Journal 111 1935ndash2042

HAWKINS DARREN 2004 ldquoExplaining Costly International Institutions Per-suasion and Enforceable Human Rights Normsrdquo International StudiesQuarterly 48 779ndash804

HEYNS CHRISTOPH AND FRANS VILJOEN 2001 ldquoThe Impact of the United Na-tions Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Levelrdquo Human RightsQuarterly 23 483ndash535

HEYWOOD ANDREW 2011 Global Politics Basingstoke Palgrave MacmillanIKHSAN MOHAMAD 2008 ldquoEconomic Reform under a Democratic Transitionrdquo

In Shaping Policy Reform and Peer Review in Southeast Asia edited by Ken-suke Tanaka 177ndash98 Paris OECD Publishing

JOHNSTON ALASTAIR I 2001 ldquoTreating International Institutions as Social En-vironmentsrdquo International Studies Quarterly 45 (4) 487ndash515

JONGEN HORTENSE 2018 ldquoThe Authority of Peer Reviews among States inthe Global Governance of Corruptionrdquo Review of International PoliticalEconomy 39 (4) 1ndash27

JUN ZHAO 2015 ldquoChina and the Uneasy Case for Universal Human RightsrdquoHuman Rights Quarterly 37 (1) 29ndash52

KAHN-NISSER SARA 2018 ldquoWhen the Targets are Members and Donors An-alyzing Inter-Governmental Organizationsrsquo Human Rights ShamingrdquoThe Review of International Organizations 63 (3) 336ndash21

KAumlLIN WALTER 2012 ldquoExamination of State Reportsrdquo In UN Human RightsTreaty Bodies Laws and Legitimacy edited by Helen Keller and Geir Ulf-stein 16ndash72 Cambridge Cambridge University Press

KELLER HELEN AND GEIR ULFSTEIN 2012a ldquoIntroductionrdquo In UN Human RightsTreaty Bodies Laws and Legitimacy edited by Helen Keller and Geir Ulf-stein 1ndash15 Cambridge Cambridge University Press

mdashmdashmdash 2012b UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies Laws and Legitimacy Editedby Helen Keller and Geir Ulfstein Cambridge Cambridge UniversityPress

KOH HAROLD HONGJU 1997 ldquoWhy Do Nations Obey InternationalLawrdquo Faculty Scholarship Series httpdigitalcommonslawyaleedufss_papers2101

KROMMENDIJK JASPER 2014a ldquoThe (In)Effectiveness of UN Human RightsTreaty Body Recommendationsrdquo Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights33 (2) 194ndash223

mdashmdashmdash 2014b The Domestic Impact and Effectiveness of the Process of State Report-ing Under UN Human Rights Treaties in the Netherlands New Zealand andFinland Antwerp Intersentia

mdashmdashmdash 2015 ldquoThe Domestic Effectiveness of International Human RightsMonitoring in Established Democracies The Case of the UN HumanRights Treaty Bodiesrdquo The Review of International Organizations 10 (4)489ndash512

LEHTONEN MARKKU 2005 ldquoOECD Environmental Performance Review Pro-grammerdquo Evaluation 11 (2) 169ndash88

LILLIEBJERG MARIANNE 2008 ldquoThe Universal Periodic Review of the UN Hu-man Rights Council An NGO Perspective on Opportunities and Short-comingsrdquo Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 26 (3) 311ndash14

MARCH JAMES G AND JOHAN P OLSEN 1998 ldquoThe Institutional Dynamics ofInternational Political Ordersrdquo International Organization 52 (4) 943ndash69

MCGOLDRICK DOMINIQUE 1994 The Human Rights Committee Its Role in theDevelopment of the International Covenant on Civil and Political RightsOxford Oxford University Press

MCMAHON EDWARD R AND M ASCHERIO 2012 ldquoA Step Ahead in Promot-ing Human Rights The Universal Periodic Review of the UN HumanRights Councilrdquo Global Governance 18 231ndash48

MCQUIGG RONAGH 2011 ldquoHow Effective Is the United Nations CommitteeAgainst Torturerdquo The European Journal of International Law 22 (3) 813ndash28

MELISH TARA J 2009 ldquoFrom Paradox to Subsidiarity The United States andHuman Rights Treaty Bodiesrdquo In The Sword and the Scales The UnitedStates and International Courts and Tribunals edited by Cesare PRRomano 210ndash95 Cambridge Cambridge University Press

NOWAK MANFRED 1993 UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights CCPR Com-mentary Kehl Engel

NOWAK MANFRED AND ELIZABETH MCARTHUR 2008 The United Nations Conven-tion against Torture Oxford Oxford University Press

OrsquoFLAHERTY MICHAEL 2006 ldquoThe Concluding Observations of United Na-tions Human Rights Treaty Bodiesrdquo Human Rights Law Review 6 (1)27ndash52

OrsquoFLAHERTY MICHAEL AND PEI-LUN TSAI 2011 ldquoPeriodic Reporting The Back-bone of the UN Treaty Body Review Proceduresrdquo In New Challengesfor the UN Human Rights Machinery edited by M Cherif Bassiouni andWilliam A Schabas 37ndash56 Cambridge Intersentia

PAGANI FABRICIO 2002 ldquoPeer Review as a Tool for Co-Operation andChangerdquo African Security Review 11 (4) 15ndash24

PAGANI FABRICIO AND URSULA WELLEN 2008 ldquoThe OECD Peer Review Mecha-nism Concept and Functionrdquo In Shaping Policy Reform and Peer Reviewin Southeast Asia edited by Kensuke Tanaka 261ndash77 Paris OECD Pub-lishing

RATHGEBER THEODOR 2008 The HRC Universal Periodic Review A Prelimi-nary Assessment Dialogue on Globalization Briefing Papers 62008 BerlinFriedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

RISSE THOMAS STEPHEN C ROPP AND KATHRYN SIKKINK 1999 The Power of Hu-man Rights Edited by Thomas Risse Stephen C Ropp and KathrynSikkink Cambridge Cambridge University Press

RODLEY NIGEL 2012 ldquoUN Treaty Bodies and the Human Rights CouncilrdquoIn UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies Laws and Legitimacy edited by HelenKeller and Geir Ulfstein Cambridge Cambridge University Press

ROESDAHL MIE 2017 ldquoUniversal Periodic Review and Its Limited ChangePotential Tracking the Complexity of Multiple Actors and Approachesto Human Rights Change Through the Lens of the UPR Process ofNepalrdquo Journal of Human Rights Practice 9 401ndash23

SAMHAT NAYEF H 1999 ldquoHuman Rights Regimes and the Emergence of In-ternational Political Communityrdquo International Politics 36 (December)503ndash27

SCHMIDT VIVIEN A AND CLAUDIO M RADAELLI 2004 ldquoPolicy Change andDiscourse in Europe Conceptual and Methodological Issuesrdquo WestEuropean Politics 27 (2) 183ndash210

SIMMONS BETH 1998 ldquoCompliance with International Agreementsrdquo AnnualReview of Political Science 1 75ndash93

mdashmdashmdash 2009 Mobilizing for Human Rights International Law in Domestic Poli-tics Cambridge Cambridge University Press

mdashmdashmdash 2010 ldquoTreaty Compliance and Violationrdquo Annual Review of PoliticalScience 13 (1) 273ndash96

SMITH RHONA KM 2011 ldquoMore of the Same of Something Different Prelim-inary Observations on the Contribution of Universal Periodic Reviewwith Reference to the Chinese Experiencerdquo Chinese Journal of Interna-tional Law 10 (3) 721ndash34

mdashmdashmdash 2014 ldquoA Review of African States in the First Cycle of the UN HumanRights Councilrsquos Universal Periodic Reviewrdquo African Human Rights LawJournal 14 346ndash65

TANAKA KENSUKE 2008 ldquoOverview Economic Integration Amid Diversity andPeer Reviews in Southeast Asia ndash Where Do We Standrdquo In Shaping Pol-icy Reform and Peer Review in Southeast Asia edited by Kensuke Tanaka21ndash62 Paris OECD Publishing

TERMAN ROCHELLE AND ERIK VOETEN 2018 ldquoThe Relational Politics of ShameEvidence from the Universal Periodic Reviewrdquo The Review of Interna-tional Organizations 13 1ndash23

TOMPKINS EMMA L AND HELENE AMUNDSEN 2008 ldquoPerceptions of the Effective-ness of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Changein Advancing National Action on Climate Changerdquo Environmental Sci-ence and Policy 11 (1) 1ndash13

UNDERDAL ARILD 1998 ldquoExplaining Compliance and Defection ThreeModelsrdquo European Journal of International Relations 4 (1) 5ndash30

UNITED NATIONS 2016 ldquoTimely Late and Non-Reporting by StatesParties to the Human Rights Treaty Bodiesrdquo HRIMC20162undocsorgHRIMC20162

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UPR INFO 2014 Beyond Promises The Impact of the UPR on the Ground UPRInfo Annual Report Geneva UPR Info httpswwwupr-infoorgsitesdefaultfilesgeneral-documentpdf2014_beyond_promisespdf

mdashmdashmdash 2016 The Butterfly Effect Spreading Good Practices of UPR Im-plementation Geneva UPR Info httpswwwupr-infoorgsitesdefaultfilesgeneral-documentpdf2016_the_butterfly_effectpdf

mdashmdashmdash 2018 UPR Mid-Term Reporting Optimising Sustainable ImplementationGood Practices for UPR Stakeholders Geneva UPR Info httpswwwupr-infoorgsitesdefaultfilesgeneral-documentpdfupr_midterm_report_web_v1_highpdf

VERSLUIS ESTHER AND ERIKA TARR 2013 ldquoImproving Compliance with Eu-ropean Union Law via Agencies The Case of the European RailwayAgencyrdquo Journal of Common Market Studies 51 (2) 316ndash33

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bodiesmdashare perceived as capable of stimulating compliancewith human rights obligations and why

Concretely the goal of this article is twofold First itassesses the extent to which the UPR and the treaty bodiesare perceived to be successful in reaching certain outcomes(process-based performance) according to the actors thatare most directly involved in the review reviewed states andreviewers These outcomes as elaborated below are con-ceptualized as generating pressure stimulating learningproviding an accurate overview of statesrsquo performance anddelivering practically feasible recommendations Secondit examines the extent to which reaching these outcomesappears to facilitate state compliance with human rights

This article is structured as follows After providing someconcise background on the UPR and treaty bodies itpresents a conceptual discussion on compliance with in-ternational obligations and on process-based performanceThe article then studies the extent to which involved partic-ipants believe that these mechanisms are able to achieve acertain set of outcomes and the extent to which these out-comes are seen to facilitate compliance By doing so it notonly highlights the comparative strengths and weaknesses ofthe UPR and treaty bodies but also contributes to theoreti-cal debates on state compliance with international commit-ments Respondentsrsquo views were collected by means of fortysemi-structured interviews and an online survey

The article shows that the treaty bodies are successful atproviding accurate overviews of statesrsquo human rights per-formance as well as learning opportunities In contrastthe UPRrsquos main perceived strength lies in generating pres-sure on states Additionally both mechanisms are relativelycapable of delivering feasible recommendations From atheoretical standpoint this article shows that under differ-ent conditions the three main schools on compliancemdashenforcement management and constructivistmdashprovideplausible explanations for statesrsquo performance in imple-menting human rights recommendations although the en-forcement school holds the biggest explanatory power inthe cases studied in this article

The Treaty Bodies and the Universal Periodic Review

The UN treaty bodies were established to monitor and su-pervise statesrsquo implementation of the ten core UN treatieson human rights They are composed of committees of in-dependent experts elected by the state parties to the treatyTreaty bodies may perform a variety of tasks receiving peri-odic reports by states on the implementation of the treatydeciding on individual complaints for purported treaty vi-olations by a state party conducting country inquiries ifthey suspect that the state party has severely violated thetreaty and providing their interpretation of treaty provi-sions in documents called General Comments This arti-cle focuses exclusively on the state reporting procedure ar-guably the main function carried out by committees (Melish2009 OrsquoFlaherty and Tsai 2011 Flinterman 2015) and asdiscussed below whose procedural functioning is highly sim-ilar to the UPR1

The UPR was created in 2007 as part of a reform ofthe UN human rights machinery that culminated in theestablishment of the Human Rights Council of which theUPR is a part The UPR is a peer reviewmdashhence states as-sess each otherrsquos human rights performances alternating in

1 For additional information on treaty bodies see ldquoMonitoring the Core In-ternational Treatiesrdquo accessed November 14 2018 httpswwwohchrorgENHRBodiesPagesOverviewaspx

their roles as reviewers and reviewees States are reviewedevery four years on the basis of all the human rights obliga-tions they have undertaken2

The UPR and the state reporting procedure of the treatybodies are highly comparable in their functioning Both arebased on information provided by states in a self-assessmentreport complemented by the UN secretariat with additionalinformation from UN and non-UN sources On this basis re-viewers issue a set of recommendations for improvement Inthe treaty bodies this document is called Concluding Obser-vations while in the UPR recommendations are includedin the outcome report A key difference between these twomechanisms concerns the nature of the reviewing body inthe UPR reviewers are states whereas in the treaty bodiesthey are independent experts In addition while treaty bodyrecommendations are adopted by consensus UPR recom-mendations are exclusively attributed to the country issuingthem

Considering its recent establishment a notable amount ofliterature on the UPR is currently available The large major-ity of existing scholarship focuses on its functioning oftenby studying state behavior within the mechanism and on itspotential to add value to the global human rights landscape(Abraham 2007 Gaer 2007 Domiacutenguez-Redondo 2008Lilliebjerg 2008 Rathgeber 2008 Abebe 2009 Freedman2011 McMahon and Ascherio 2012 Cowan and Billaud2015) Some authors discuss the establishment of the UPRin a highly detailed manner (Alston 2006 Abraham 2007Gaer 2007 Freedman 2011 2013 McMahon and Ascherio2012) while others focus on its functioning for exampleby discussing the participation of certain (groups of) statessuch as African states (Abebe 2009 Smith 2014) or China(Smith 2011) or by highlighting the existence of naming-and-shaming (Terman and Voeten 2018) While scholars aredivided about the potential of the UPR to generate compli-ance (for an overview of this debate see Etone 2019) em-pirical work assessing the extent to which UPR recommen-dations are implemented is scarce Most of existing analyseshave been carried out by the Geneva-based nongovernmen-tal organization (NGO) UPR Info (UPR Info 2014 20162018) or consist of single case studies by practitioners (egRoesdahl 2017) Although UPR Info is positive concerningstatesrsquo implementation of recommendations its studies donot take into account possible intervening factors as alsopointed out by Elizalde (2019)

Academic accounts on the treaty bodies abound (Nowak1993 McGoldrick 1994 Alston and Crawford 2000 Bayefsky2001 Nowak and McArthur 2008 Bassiouni and Schabas2011 Keller and Ulfstein 2012b Alston and Goodman 2013Creamer and Simmons 2015) Works assessing their im-pact tend to focus on a selected number of cases and gen-erally show that recommendations are implemented onlyin some cases and with high variation across countries(see Heyns and Viljoen 2001 McQuigg 2011 Krommendijk2014a 2014b 2015) When scholars find a link betweentreaty bodies and policy change they generally argue thatthis impact derives from a favorable domestic context forexample treaty bodies are seen as instrumental in provid-ing opportunities for domestic actors to push for their pre-ferred policy outcomes (Krommendijk 2015 Creamer andSimmons 2019)

Few comparisons of the UPR and treaty bodies have beenundertaken so far Exceptions are work by Gaer (2007) and

2 For further information on the UPR see ldquoUniversal Periodic Reviewrdquoaccessed November 14 2018 httpswwwohchrorgenhrbodiesuprpagesuprmainaspx

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states (UPR and TB)








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Conclusions




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states (UPR and TB)








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Conclusions




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states (UPR and TB)








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Conclusions




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states (UPR and TB)








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Conclusions




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References




































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states (UPR and TB)








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Conclusions




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Conclusions




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Conclusions




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Conclusions




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Conclusions




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Conclusions




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Conclusions




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upr info - promoting compliance with human rights: the ......this article proposes and applies a...

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