《How Preferential Trade Agreements Influence Government Repression》.pdf

Trading Human Rights: How Preferential Trade Agreements Influence Government Repression Emilie M+ Hafner-Burton Abstract A growing number of preferential trade agreements ~PTAs! have come to play a significant role in governing state compliance with human rights+ When they supply hard standards that tie material benefits of integration to compliance with human rights principles, PTAs are more effective than softer human rights agree- ments ~HRAs! in changing repressive behaviors+ PTAs improve members’ human rights through coercion, by supplying the instruments and resources to change actors’ incentives to promote reforms that would not otherwise be implemented+ I develop three hypotheses: ~1! state commitment to HRAs and ~2! PTAs supplying soft human rights standards ~not tied to market benefits! do not systematically produce improve- ment in human rights behaviors, while ~3! state commitment to PTAs supplying hard human rights standards does often produce better practices+ I draw on several cases to illustrate the processes of influence and test the argument on the experience of 177 states during the period 1972 to 2002+ Human rights violations are pervasive+1 As a substantial percentage of states repress their citizens, an increasingly dense set of formal treaties, conventions, and pro- tocols have been designed to protect the inalienable rights of human beings— human rights agreements ~HRAs!+ These agreements are different than other forms of international cooperation designed to overcome collective action problems and to internalize cross-border externalities+ HRAs are designed to regulate sov- I would like to thank Mike Colaresi, Dan Drezner, David Lake, Lisa Martin, Walter Mattli, John Meyer, Mark Pollack, Erik Voeten, Jim Vreeland, and two anonymous reviewers for their detailed and thoughtful comments on va