Competing Visions of Human Rights in International Review Processes

Abstract

Why do some human rights issues receive more attention at the UN than others? This study posits the importance of states’ heterogeneous issue preferences in understanding their shaming behavior. First, allowing sender effects to vary across issues reveals meaningful heterogeneity in states’ issue emphases after accounting for affinity and network structure. Second, clustering the posterior distribution of sender–issue effects uncovers normative communities—distinct but shallow patterns of residual issue prioritization that cut across geopolitical alignments. Third, principal component analysis highlights human rights visions that are in a competing, trade-off relationship. These findings suggest that governments promote competing visions of which rights should receive international attention.