Policing the State: International Human Rights Law and Citizen Coordination

Abstract

This paper examines the question of whether international human rights law can aid citizens' efforts to respond to, and prevent, government abuse. I argue that where human rights treaties contribute to the legalization of domestic institutions designed to protect individual rights they can serve as coordination devices that create widespread agreement about the limits of government authority, thus facilitating concerted opposition to repressive government behavior. Implications of the argument are tested using cross-national data on domestic and international laws protecting personal integrity, and a fully Bayesian hierarchical linear model.