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Motivation: can democracy increase the effectiveness of a human rights convention?

A Panel Analysis on the Effects of the Women´s Convention -Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Seo-Young Cho (George-August University of Göttingen). Motivation: can democracy increase the effectiveness of a human rights convention?.

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Motivation: can democracy increase the effectiveness of a human rights convention?

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  1. A Panel Analysis on the Effects of the Women´s Convention-Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)Seo-Young Cho (George-August University of Göttingen) IPES 2009

  2. Motivation: can democracy increase the effectiveness of a human rights convention? • Recurring question in political economy: • Is an international convention on human rights effective? • ‘Cheap talk’ (Downs et. al., IO 1996) vs. ‘spread of international norm’ (Koh, ILJ 1998) • No consensus in both theoretical and empirical discussions • Redirecting the question: In which condition can an international human rights treaty be effective?  Focus on democracy as a crucial institutional condition IPES 2009

  3. Studies on democracy, human rights and treaties • Democracy promotes the human rights practice of a country • Poe, Tate and Keith (ISQ 1999), Simmons (RPS 1998), Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui (AJS 2005) • Respect for law, justice, judicial independence and civil participation • Does democracy enhance the effectiveness of the international legal mechanism of human rights norms? • Only one empirical study: Neumayer (JCR 2005) • His findings: positive interaction effect bet. the membership of HR treaties (ICCP, Torture, other regional conventions) and democracy on HR practice IPES 2009

  4. CEDAW (1981, UN) • The prime ‘Women’s Convention’ • Comprehensive but a special focus on women’s social rights article 16 – core article article 5 calling for changes in social and cultural patterns • Innovative approaches attempting to change practice of family and social matters (deeply rooted and habituated in culture, Simmons 2004) • Universal agreement (186 members) however, a large number of reservations (1/3 of members have reservations), in par. to the core articles (arc. 2 and 16, 1/5 of members) IPES 2009

  5. Does the CEDAW improve women’s rights? Women’s Social Rights CIRI Women’s Rights Index (126 countries, 1981-2005) Commitments to the CEDAW weighted scale of reservations (126 countries, 1981-2005) IPES 2009

  6. Hypotheses and Focus of Analysis Hypothesis 1 The effects of the CEDAW on women’s rights are enhanced if combined with a higher level of democracy Hypothesis 2 The effects of the CEDAW are most positively pronounced in the dimension of women’s social rights Focus of Analysis • Estimation and interpretation of the interaction term – CEDAW and democracy – in a non-linear model • Reverse-causality issue: employing two exogenous instrumental variables, commitments to the Torture Convention (CAT) and Genocide Convention (CPPCG) IPES 2009

  7. Measuring commitments to the CEDAW • Taking into account the large amount of reservations, membership alone does not reflect true commitments • Modification of Landman’s (2005) weighted scale of reservations • Special weights given to the core articles, arc. 2 and arc. 16 0: No signatory 1: Signed but not ratified 2: Ratified but with reservations to arc. 2 and/or 16 (incl. general reservations based on conflicts with religious or domestic law) 3: Ratified but with reservations to other articles than 2 and 16 4: Full ratification without reservations IPES 2009

  8. Data and Estimation Method • Dependent variable: women’s social, political and economic rights, CIRI Human Rights Index • Independent variable of the main interest: - commitments to the CEDAW, proxied by reservations - interaction bet. CEDAW and democracy (PolityIV) • Selection of control variables: one-year lagged dependent variable, democracy, the number of HR NGOs, regime durability, external conflict, internal conflict, (log) population sizes, (log) per capita income and trade openness (Neumayer, JCR 2005; Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui, AJS 2005) • Time, religion and regions are controlled IPES 2009

  9. Women’s rights, ordered probit, 1981-2005, 126 countries • Positive effect on women’s social rights conditional to democracy • Positive effect of the CEDAW on political rights has to be interpreted with a caution, given the negative effect of the interaction term • Marginal effects of the interaction term calculated at the mean • Validity of the instruments: exogeneity (Hansen J test, P-value 0.33- 0.90) IPES 2009

  10. Effectiveness of the CEDAW and the level of democracy The effect becomes significant after the median score 0 Dependent var: women’s social rights IPES 2009

  11. Conclusion • Effectiveness of the CEDAW conditional on democracy • Effects differ across multi-dimensions of women’s rights the CEDAW advocates and the positive impact is confirmed for women’s social rights with the conditionality, the level of democracy IPES 2009

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