Implications of International Relations Theory for the International Law of Human Rights

Arthur Mark Weisburd

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - School of Law

1999

Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 38, No. 1, p. 45, 1999
UNC Legal Studies Research Paper

Abstract:     
This article seeks to apply international relations theory to international human rights law in an effort to examine the ways in which the structure of the international system affects that body of law. More specifically, the article attempts to determine whether that structure renders unlikely the success of the dominant approaches to the international protection of human rights, and makes suggestions for alternatives. The article first reviews the most important human rights treaty regimes, demonstrating the ineffectiveness of almost all of them. It then sets out several case studies of repressive regimes which were modified substantially with no obvious contribution made by international law to those modifications. Next, it provides a relatively brief description of leading theories of international relations-those focusing on interest-based bargaining, power-based bargaining, and interactions driven by guiding ideas. The following section applies the theory from the second section to the data from the first, and shows that all approaches to international relations theory would predict the actual lack of success of existing treaty regimes. It adds, however, that the case studies from the first section demonstrate the importance of changes in ideas in affecting the internal political structures of states. It concludes by arguing that human rights are more likely to be advanced through efforts to alter the thinking of populations and government officials than by more traditional legal tools, and makes some tentative suggestions as to how such efforts might proceed.

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