Replication data for: Legislative Veto Players and the Effects of International Human Rights Agreements

Do national legislatures constitute a mechanism by which commitments to international human rights treaties can be made credible? Treaty ratification can activate domestic mechanisms that make repression more costly, and the legislative opposition can enhance these mechanisms. Legislative veto players raise the cost of formalistic repressive strategies by declining to consent to legislation. Executives can still choose to rely on more costly, extralegal strategies, but these could result in severe penalties for the leader and require the leader to expend resources to hide. Especially in treaty member-states, legislatures can use other powers to also increase the cost of extralegal violations, which can further reduce repression. By using an empirical strategy that attempts to address the selection effects in treaty commitment decisions, I show that positive effects of human rights treaties increase when there are more legislative veto players.

国家立法机关是否可作为一种令国际人权条约承诺具备可信度的机制？条约批准可激活国内相关机制，使侵犯人权的压制行为需付出更高成本，而立法反对力量可进一步强化这些机制。立法否决权参与者（legislative veto players）可通过否决相关立法，提升形式主义式压制策略的实施成本。行政部门仍可选择采取成本更高的法外压制策略，但此类策略不仅会为领导人招致严厉惩处，还需其耗费资源加以掩盖。尤其在条约成员国中，立法机关还可借助其他职权提高法外侵权行为的实施成本，进而进一步减少压制行为。本文采用旨在解决条约承诺决策中选择效应问题的实证研究策略，实证结果表明：当立法否决权参与者数量更多时，人权条约所产生的积极效应会更为显著。