M. Rodwan Abouharb

A New Dataset on Infant Mortality Rates, 1816—2002:

Systematic data on annual infant mortality rates are of use to a variety of social science research programs in demography, economics, sociology, and political science. Infant mortality rates may be used both as a proxy measure for economic development, in lieu of energy consumption or GDP-per-capita measures, and as an indicator of the extent to which governments provide for the economic and social welfare of their citizens. Until recently, data were available for only a limited number of countries based on regional or country-level studies and time periods for years after 1950. Here, the authors introduce a new dataset reporting annual infant mortality rates for all states in the world, based on the Correlates of War state system list, between 1816 and 2002. They discuss past research programs using infant mortality rates in conflict studies and describe the dataset by exploring its geographic and temporal coverage. Next, they explain some of the limitations of the dataset as well as issues associated with the data themselves. Finally, they suggest some research areas that might benefit from the use of this dataset. This new dataset is the most comprehensive source on infant mortality rates currently available to social science researchers.

The Human Rights Peace: How the Respect for Human Rights at Home Leads to Peace Abroad

Respect for human rights represents self-imposed restraints on the behavior of a government. These limits signify both a domestic norm and a state that has decided to settle political disputes through nonviolent methods. When these governments interact in the international system, we suspect that their basic norms of behavior will remain and generate relatively peaceful interactions. We test this contention on pairs of all states from 1980 to 2001 and find that joint respect for human rights decreases the probability of conflict. This relationship is maintained even when one controls for the effect of democracy and its influence on the human rights record of states.

De Facto Judicial Independence and Physical Integrity Rights

Economists, political scientists, and legal scholars have argued that independent judiciaries have an important role to play in promoting economic development and protecting property rights. We argue that judicial independence can also have a positive impact on the protection of human rights. To assess the human rights impact of a de facto independent judiciary, we also argue that scholars must account for the potential of endogeneity between judicial independence and protection of human rights. We examine whether greater de facto independence improves government respect for citizens’ physical integrity rights, using a comprehensive dataset of 193 countries from 1981 to 2010. Employing an instrumental variables approach to control for endogeneity, we find strong support for the argument that greater levels of de facto judicial independence improve government respect for physical integrity rights. These findings are robust to changes in measurement, estimation techniques, and model specification. Failing to account for endogeneity will tend to overemphasize the ability of completely independent courts to improve government respect for physical integrity rights.

Does the WTO help member states improve governance

On 16 December 2011, Russia gained the approval of 153 other member states to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). During its arduous eighteen-year accession, Russian officials reformed a wide range of laws and policies that could affect trade. 1 Russia made these changes because senior Russian officials believed that improved governance would pay off in greater foreign investment, and that investment in turn would stimulate economic growth. 2 President Vladimir Putin acknowledged ‘countries compete in the attractiveness of their business climate … quality of state institutions and effectiveness of the court and legal system’. Ivan Tchakarov, chief economist at the Russian brokerage Renaissance Capital, asserted ‘By becoming a WTO member, Russia will have to import … rules and regulations that will address the very issues that foreign investors usually complain about, like corruption, the protection of minority shareholders, the independence of the judiciary.’ 3

Human Rights and Structural Adjustment: A human rights-based approach to economic development

Introduction The findings of our study have ethical and practical implications. Since the passage of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the promotion of better human rights practices by governments around the world has been one of the most important functions of the United Nations. It is morally wrong for agencies of the United Nations, which include both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to undermine one of their parent organizations most important goals, the promotion of good human rights practices (Clapham 2006; Darrow 2003; Skogly 1993; 2001). The practical implication of our findings is that structural adjustment programs are not producing good economic outcomes mainly because they combine relatively ineffective policies with the undermining of a necessary precondition for economic growth – respect for human rights. The World Bank and IMF should be pursuing equitable economic development. We have defined equitable economic development as the simultaneous achievement of economic growth and advancement in protections of economic and social rights of citizens. Achieving one element without the other should be considered “development failure.” We argue that respect for some human rights will promote equitable development. More precisely, respect for some physical integrity and civil rights and liberties will lead to faster rates of economic growth and progress in achieving respect for economic and social rights to such things as health care, education, and housing .

The Human Rights Effects of Participation in Program Lending Versus the CESCR

This is the first study to compare the competing effects of state participation in two international governmental regimes on government respect for human rights. Specifically, we compare the effects of participation in the international financial regime with participation in the international human rights regime on changes in government respect for economic and social rights in developing countries between 1981 and 2004. A longer period under World Bank or IMF program lending was found to be associated with lower life expectancy, a lower adult literacy rate, and a higher infant mortality rate. A longer period of participation in the International Covenant on Economic and Social Human Rights only was associated with an improved adult literacy rate. The use of a two-stage model ruled out the possibility that economic and social rights practices of governments would have changed in these ways even if governments had not participated or had participated only briefly in either regime.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the strategic shift to forced disappearance

ABSTRACT Political leaders not only assess the costs and benefits of repression but also act strategically in their use of particular repression types. Choices amongst repression types depend partly upon leaders being held responsible for their particular actions. The codification of the international human rights regime indicated by broad ratification of the core International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights increases the likelihood of criminal responsibility, and political leaders who repress but want to avoid accountability for their actions respond strategically. These governments refrain from extrajudicial killing, which is easier to link to the government, relying instead on forced disappearances, a violation that is more difficult to tie to the incumbent regime. Using a sample of 194 countries from 1981 to 2009, we find that decreases in the use of extrajudicial killing in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights member states are associated with increases in the use of forced disappearance. This indicates a substitution effect as governments attempt to maintain the benefits of repression while avoiding the costs of accountability. Our findings are robust to changes in measurement, sample size, and model specification.

Human Rights and Structural Adjustment: Economic and social rights

Introduction In 2000, the World Bank and IMF, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the United Nations published a jointly prepared document titled A Better World for All . In it, the worlds two most important international financial institutions guaranteed that, in partnership with others, they would make substantial progress in reducing world poverty by 2015. The report proposes measuring poverty reduction in seven areas: world poverty (the percentage of people living on the equivalent of 1 US dollar or less per day), gender gaps in school enrollment, primary school enrollment, infant mortality and maternal mortality (Sadasivam 1997), access to health services, and sustainable development. Among other specific goals mentioned in the report, the promises include decreasing rates of infant mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-fourths, providing access to all that need health services, and ensuring that all children are enrolled in primary school. Taken together, the goals in the report are commonly referred to as the “Millennium Development Goals.” This report and these promises made in it were necessary because there is a growing consensus that most of the countries we usually refer to as “developing economies” are not developing at all or are not developing as quickly as had been hoped. Jeffrey Sachs, an economist who directs the Millennium Development Project, notes that, according to World Bank estimates, 1.1 billion people or about one-sixth of the worlds population live in extreme poverty (Sachs 2005).