Publication of foreigners’ human rights abuses and retaliation between Convention Against Torture (CAT) states
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020231178390 |
| Author | Sara Kahn Nisser |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
Publication of foreigners’
human rights abuses and
retaliation between
Convention Against
Torture (CAT) states
Sara Kahn Nisser
Open University of Israel, Israel
Abstract
Institutions that monitor violations of human rights, particularly of victims living outside
their home countries, will often name the victims’countries of origin in their reports.
This article looks at this understudied practice and argues that it unintentionally creates
bilateral retaliation dynamics between the victims’home country and the country vio-
lating the victims’rights. The article defines retaliation and explains why countries care
about violations of their citizens’rights that take place abroad. Through empirical anal-
ysis, the article shows that countries retaliate in response to violations of their citizens’
rights which have been identified and publicized by theUN Committee Against Torture.
I use a new dyadic dataset on the abuse of foreigners’human rights, as identified by
Amnesty International and the Committee Against Torture, to test the hypothesis
that a country’s abuse of foreigners from a peer country is associated with that peer
country’s abuse of rights of citizens from the observed country. I then examine the
Syrian–Lebanese case to trace the process of retaliation. These analyses support the
hypothesis that countries retaliate against violations of their citizens’rights abroad.
Keywords
human rights, retaliation, United Nations, shaming, Committee Against Torture,
dyadic analysis, process tracing, refugees, migration, diaspora
Corresponding author:
Sara Kahn Nisser,Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, Open University of Israel,
1 University Road, Raanana 4353701, Israel.
Email: sarabethkn@gmail.com
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2023, Vol. 78(1-2) 87–107
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00207020231178390
journals.sagepub.com/home/ijx
In its 2017 report, the Convention Against Torture (CAT) treaty body harshly crit-
icized the Cameroon government for violently deporting many Nigerian refugees in
a breach of the country’s obligations under the treaty.
1
Two years later, following
violent clashes between rebels and the military, rape, extortion, and the destruction
of their makeshift homes, Cameroonians fled to Nigeria. This article argues that
these two cases of glaring violations of CAT are not unrelated.
2
But we do not
know whether this link is anecdotal or systematic. This article addresses
that question.
This article looks at an understudied practice of many human rights monitoring
bodies. In publicized reports, when such bodies reference violations of foreigners’
rights, they often note the abused foreigners’countries of origin. Research has yet
to examine the implications of this specific detail. Benevolent international actions
may trigger unforeseen negative consequences in the target country. Some of these
unforeseen negative actions include backlash, trade-offs, and counter-action.
3
This
article identifies another such consequence and the mechanism that drives it.
The article argues that by naming the origin countries of the victims of violations,
human rights monitoring bodies unintentionally create bilateral retaliation dynamics.
4
By naming the victims’countries of origin, such bodies aim first, to capture the atten-
tion of the origin countries and mobilize them to put pressure on the non-compliant
countries; and second, to strengthen the monitoring body’s authority and legitimacy
by demonstrating its knowledge of contextual details. Unfortunately, this practice
might also unintentionally induce retaliation dynamics. Emigration is an important
economic and political safety valve for many governments. Therefore, governments
care about how their populations perceive the well-being of their citizens abroad.
Hence, the authoritative identification and publication of violations of the rights of a
country’s citizens by another country lead to more rights violations and risks retaliation
spiraling into reiterative cycles of mutual injury.
The article elucidates this phenomenon; it also shows empirically that CAT-ratifying
states do retaliate against perceived violators of their citizens’rights which have been
identified and published by an authorized body. Using new dyadic data that captures
1. “Concluding observations of the Committee Against Torture—Cameroon,”UN Convention Against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 18 December 2017, https://
docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=6QkG1d%2fPPRiCAqhKb7yhsvo7kjjQy53lGY
Oi8v5hl4gIpg%2bj3mTf%2bmFhpzMF7yqFQ5aFlI6sXg4fs7Oaa4VUuieXJ%2bbRu9n4Ht07elVFzD8i
LzgDql1ecFbgI3xsGfZg (accessed 30 April 2023).
2. For convenience, from here on the term rights refers to foreigners’rights under the CAT, unless stated
otherwise.
3. See Anton Strezhnev, Judith G. Kelley, and Beth A. Simmons, “Testing for negative spillovers: Is pro-
moting human rights really part of the ‘problem’?,”International Organization 75, no. 1 (2021): 71–102,
for an excellent review of this literature.
4. While raising the issue is intentional, the effect on the home country and the triggering of retaliatory
dynamics is not. See Nina Reiners, Transnational Lawmaking Coalitions for Human Rights (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2021).
88 International Journal 78(1-2)
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