SAGE Journal Articles

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Journal Article 1: Bellamy, A. J. (2013). The responsibility to protect: Added value or hot air? Cooperation and Conflict, 48(3), 333-357. doi:10.1177/0010836713482448

Summary: This article, by one of the architects of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP), argues that RtoP has not effectively mobilized action to protect populations, but rather is helping reshape state norms regarding the need to protect populations and has been brought into the Security Council. It does not determine behavior, but the norm is influencing the context in which decisions are made.

Questions to Consider

  1. What is RtoP?

  2. What does Bellamy mean by “habits of protection” that have been internalized by the Security Council?

  3. Since this article was published, we have continued to see atrocities in Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, and several other locations. Do you believe Bellamy’s “optimism” was unfounded?

 

Journal Article 2: Cater, C., & Malone, D. M. (2016). The origins and evolution of responsibility to protect at the UN. International Relations, 30(3), 278-297. doi:10.1177/0047117816659586

Summary: This article traces the intellectual and policy foundations for the RtoP doctrine from the end of the Cold War to the present. It provides a history of RtoP and discusses it as a “platform for advocacy and … for action by the UN.”

Questions to Consider

  1. Why did RtoP emerge with the end of the Cold War?

  2. What role did the conflicts in the early 1990s have in shifting the debate on protection of civilian populations?

  3. In what way was the Kosovo conflict the first step toward the final adoption of RtoP by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005?

 

Journal Article 3: Freedman, R. (2011). New mechanisms of the UN human rights council. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 29(3), 289-323. doi:10.1177/016934411102900303

Summary: This article introduces the UN Human Rights Council and the mechanisms it created early in its existence after the UN established it in 2006. The article argues that the Council has been used as a political tool by states and regional groups.

Questions to Consider

  1. In reviewing the mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, what aspects of it have been particularly vulnerable to political influence?

  2. The Human Rights Council was established to replace the Commission on Human Rights in part because it had been beset by politics; why do you believe states allowed this new organization to face many of the same problems the old one did?

  3. Does Freedman give us any hope for the future of the Human Right Council’s ability to improve human rights practice?

 

Journal Article 4: Neumayer, E. (2005). Do international human rights treaties improve respect for human rights? Journal of Conflict Resolution, 49(6), 925-953. doi:10.1177/0022002705281667

Summary: This article is part of a strand of research examining human rights treaties that finds that human rights treaties themselves rarely lead to a measurable change in human rights practice in states after they are ratified. While democracies may improve human rights practice, autocracies frequently do not improve or have worse human rights performance.

Questions to Consider

  1. Why do you believe autocracies ratify human rights treaties if they have no intention of following them?

  2. If this finding is correct, human rights treaties have little positive impact. If that is true, do human rights treaties serve any purpose?

  3. Some responses to this article suggests that human rights treaties may not have an initial impact, but overtime the ideas in them become more and more accepted until they lead to improved human rights performance. If this criticism is correct, what do you believe an appropriate time frame would be to evaluate human rights treaties?

 

Journal Article 5: Pegram, T. (2015). Global human rights governance and orchestration: National human rights institutions as intermediaries. European Journal of International Relations, 21(3), 595-620. doi:10.1177/1354066114548079

Summary: This article examines UN Human Rights Mechanisms, particularly the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and their role in the governance of human rights issues. It examines the relationship between OHCHR and states, particularly national human rights institutions (NHRIs).

Questions to Consider

  1. The article suggests that human rights may not be a “high politics” concern and is less prone to micromanagement by great powers. Do you agree with this assertion?

  2. What does the author mean when he suggests the OHCHR serves as an orchestrator? What is an example of orchestrator functions?

  3. What does this article suggests about the capacity of the UN to influence human rights behavior and practice?