The individual complaints mechanisms of UN human rights bodies allow victims of human rights violations to submit complaints about the violations that they experienced to international human rights experts. In response, the experts ``name and shame'' governments by sending them public letters and urging them to address the alleged abuse. 

How does such individual complaint-based shaming affect human rights outcomes? Following-up on specific cases of abuse, complaint-based shaming reveals the identities of complainants and their collaborators. To deter future challenges and mitigate the costs of non-compliance, we argue that governments exploit this personalized information to repress challengers. Therefore, complaint-based shaming increases repression against individuals and civil society organizations (CSOs) that helped formulate the complaint. Using the case of the UN Special Procedures, which operate the most widely accessible individual complaints mechanism to date, we test the implications of our theory with several novel datasets across countries and CSOs. Multiple identification strategies---including instrumental variables for individual complaints-based shaming---corroborate our results. Shaming based on individual complaints has systematic detrimental effects for individuals who collaborate with the UN and for CSOs. Specifically, CSOs who helped initiate complaints report deteriorating relations with governments and are more likely subject to state repression after appearing in public ‘shaming’ letters. While complaints mechanisms empower individuals in the international human rights system, our findings highlight the risks of personalized shaming and call for reforms that take the risk of reprisals seriously.

Speaker

Dr. Christoph Steinert is an SNF Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Zurich. Christoph holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Mannheim and an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford. His research focuses on international human rights institutions and the determinants and consequences of state repression. His research has been published among otherr in the Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly, and Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Discussant

Marie Hulthin, PhD Reserach Fellow, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo

ModeratorS

James Hollway and Lucile Maertens, co-directors for the Global Governance Centre