Description
State repression aimed at preventing citizens from sharing information or expertise with UN human rights bodies is a novel but important form of repression. In UN vocabulary this is known as “intimidation and reprisals for cooperation with the United Nations in the field of human rights.” This paper argues that repression aimed at individuals or groups trying to share information with the UN is meant to silence critics of the state in question and therefore manipulate the human rights record of that state as documented by the UN. By punishing individuals who work with the UN the state aims to sever links between the domestic sphere and international visibility and, ultimately, accountability. The objective is a sanitized version of the state’s human rights performance shorn of dissenting voices. This is a common strategy: the NGO International Service for Human Rights has created a dataset from these reports that records details of over 800 events between 2010 and 2022. This paper evaluates the determinants of this repressive strategy. Using Heckman selection model and zero-inflated negative binomial model to account for selection bias and model count data with an excess of zero counts, the paper hypothesizes four logics that can explain variation in states’ usage of UN-focused repression. Two logics are domestic and pertain to the nature of domestic repression and political regime type. Two logics are international and have to do with voting patterns at the UN and representation in UN human rights bodies. After evaluating the determinants of UN-focused state repression, the paper turns to a case study to assess the effectiveness of the strategy: repression by Venezuelan authorities of individuals and groups attempting to work with the UN human rights machinery.
