Publication of foreigners’ human rights abuses and retaliation between Convention Against Torture (CAT) states

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 violating the victims’ rights. The article defines retaliation and explains why countries care about violations of their citizens’ rights that take place abroad. Through empirical analysis, the article shows that countries retaliate in response to violations of their citizens’ rights which have been identified and publicized by the UN 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.