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Human rights, principled issue-networks, and sovereignty in Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Kathryn Sikkink
Kathryn Sikkink
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
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Abstract

International relations theorists have devoted insufficient attention to the processes through which state sovereignty is being transformed in the modern world. The human rights issue offers a case study of a gradual and significant reconceptualization of state sovereignty. In the human rights issue-area, the primary movers behind the international actions leading to changing understandings of sovereignty are transnational nonstate actors organized in a principled issue-network, including international and domestic nongovernmental organizations, parts of global and regional intergovernmental organizations, and private foundations. These networks differ from other forms of transnational relations in that they are driven primarily by shared values or principled ideas. Through a comparative study of the impact of international human rights pressures on Argentina and Mexico in the 1970s and 1980s, this article explores the emergence and the nature of the principled human rights issue-network and the conditions under which it can contribute to changing both state understandings about sovereignty and state human rights practices.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , Summer 1993 , pp. 411 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1993

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References

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20. This discussion on why human rights gained importance in the 1970s is developed further in Kathryn Sikkink, “The Power of Principled Ideas: The Origins and Continuity of Human Rights Policies in the United States and Western Europe,” in Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy.

21. The oldest of human rights organizations, the Anti-slavery Society, was founded in 1839, but most international human rights NGOs have emerged since World War II. For a discussion of NGOs in the area of human rights, see Weissbrodt, David, “The Contribution of International Nongovernmental Organizations to the Protection of Human Rights,” in Meron, , Human Rights in International Law, pp. 403–38Google Scholar.

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25. These figures are based on information coded from Union of International Associations, ed., Yearbook of International Organizations: 1948 (Brussels: Union of International Associations, 1948)Google Scholar; and Union of International Associations, ed., Yearbook of International Organizations: 1990 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1990). They include only organizations and exclude treaties, conventions, and declarations also listed in the yearbooksGoogle Scholar.

26. Economic and Social Council resolutions 1235 (passed in 1967) and 1503 (passed in 1970), which authorized the commission to review communications and investigate complaints that appear to reveal a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights, fundamentally strengthened the UN human rights machinery.

27. The Covenant for Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights were substantially drafted by 1954 but not approved by the General Assembly and opened for signature until 1966. The two covenants reached the required number of adherents for entry into legal force in 1976.

28. Organization of American States, Inter-American Commission on Rights, Human, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Argentina (Washington, D.C.: OAS General Secretariat, 1980)Google Scholar.

29. On the Ford Foundation–s international work, see Bell, Peter D., “The Ford Foundation as a Transnational Actor,” International Organization 25 (Summer 1971), pp. 465–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Puryear, Jeffrey M., “Higher Education, Development Assistance, and Repressive Regimes,” Studies in Comparative International Development 17 (Summer 1982), pp. 3–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. The subject of human rights did not appear in the index of major foundation grants in the United States until 1975; see The Foundation Center, The Foundation Grants Index (New York: The Foundation Center, 1975)Google Scholar. Before this, a few human rights grants were listed under the subjects of civil rights or social sciences, but these comprised a small portion of total international grants.

31. The International Foundation Directory lists fifteen European foundations with human rights as one of their funding priorities. SeeHodson, H. V., ed., The International Foundation Directory 1991, 5th ed. (London: Europa Publications, 1991)Google Scholar.

32. This point about network leverage on more powerful actors was first developed by Margaret Keck and is elaborated in further detail in Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Issue Networks in the Environment and Human Rights,” paper presented at the 17th congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Los Angeles, 24–27 September 1992.

33. Interview with John Salzberg, former special consultant on human rights to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C., April 1991. Although the committee has been less active under subsequent chairpersons, it has continued to hold hearings on human rights abuses in countries around the world.

34. Egeland, Jan, Impotent Superpower-Potent Small State: Potentials and Limitations of Human Rights Objectives in the Foreign Policies of the U.S. and Norway (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1988), p. 193Google Scholar, fn.

35. See, for example, Human Rights Watch and the Lawyers Committee for Rights, Human, Critique: Review of the Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1987 (New York: Human Rights Watch and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 06 1988)Google Scholar.

36. This section draws upon some material from an earlier work; see Martin and Sikkink, “U.S. Policy and Human Rights in Argentina and Guatemala, 1973–1980.”

37. Mignone recalls, “One phrase I heard repeatedly in that period from the mouths of Generals, Colonels, Admirals, and Brigadiers was, ‘we aren't going to do it like Franco and Pinochet who executed people publicly, because then even the Pope will be asking us not to do it.’” See Mignone, Emilio, Derechos humanosy sociedad: el caso argentino (Human rights and society: the Argentine case) (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Pensamiento Nacional and Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, 1991), p. 66Google Scholar. This process of perverse learning is also discussed in Uriarte, Claudio, Almirante Cero: Biografia No Autorizada de Emilio Eduardo Massera (Admiral Zero: The unauthorized biography of Emilio Eduardo Massera) (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1992), p. 97Google Scholar; and in Acuña, Carlos H. and Smulovitz, Catalina, “Ajustando las FF.AA. a la Democracia: Exitos, Fracasos, y Ambigiiidades de las Experiencias del Cono Sur” (Adjusting the armed forces to democracy: Successes, failures, and ambiguities of the experiences of the southern cone), paper presented at a workshop on human rights, justice, and society in Latin America, organized by the Social Science Research Council, Buenos Aires, 22–24 10 1992, p. 4Google Scholar.

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40. After the coup in 1976, Argentine political exiles set up branches of the Argentine Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Mexico City, Paris, Rome, and Washington, D.C. Two of its members testified on human rights abuses in Argentina during hearings in the U.S. House Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organization in October 1976. See Guest, Iain, Behind the Disappearances: Argentina's Dirty War Against Human Rights and the United Nations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), pp. 66–67Google Scholar.

41. Interview with Robert Pastor, former director of Latin American Affairs, National Security Council, 1977–81, Wianno, Mass., 28 June 1990.

42. Testimony given by Patricia Derian to the National Criminal Appeals Court in Buenos Aires during the trials of junta members: “Massera sonrio y me dijo: ‘Sabe qué pasó con Poncio Pilatos?’” (“Massera smiled at me and said, ‘Do you know what happened to Pontius Pilate?’ ”) See Diario deljuicio, 18 June 1985, p. 3, and Guest, , Behind the Disappearances, pp. 161–63Google Scholar. Later the report of the Argentine National Commission of the Disappeared confirmed that the Navy Mechanical School was one of the more notorious secret torture and detention centers; see Nunca Mas: The Report of the Argentine National Commission for the Disappeared (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986), pp. 79–84Google Scholar.

43. For example, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo received grants from Dutch churches and the Norwegian Parliament, and the Ford Foundation provided funds for the Center for Legal and Social Studies and the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo).

44. Timerman, Jacobo, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without A Number (New York: Random House, 1981)Google Scholar.

45. Guest, , Behind the Disappearances, pp. 118–19 and 182–83Google Scholar.

46. Carta Politico, a news magazine considered to be very close to the military government, commented in August 1978 that international pressures on Argentina continued to increase, citing the examples of the denial of Export-Import Bank credits to Argentina for human rights reasons and the U.S. military aid ban, and concluded that “the principal problem facing the Argentine State has now become the international siege (cerco international).” See “Cuadro de Situación” (Description of the Situatión), Carta Politico, no. 57, 08t 1978, p. 8Google Scholar.

47. Interviews with former Vice President Walter Mondale, Minneapolis, Minn., 20 June 1989, and Ricardo Yofre, former political advisor to President Jorge Videla, Buenos Aires, 1 August 1990.

48. See Asamblea Permanente por los Humanos, Derechos, Las Cifras de la Guerra Sucia (The numbers of the dirty war) (Buenos Aires: Asamblea Permanente por los Derechos Humanos, 08 1988), pp. 26–32Google Scholar.

49. These figures are taken from Meyer, Michael C. and Sherman, William L., The Course of Mexican History, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 669Google Scholar; from Amnesty International, Annual Report 1968–69 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1969), p. 12Google Scholar; and from interviews with Mexican human rights activists.

50. Ramirez, Ramon, El Movimiento Estudiantil de Mexico: Julio-Diciembre 1968, Tomo 2, Documentos (The Mexican student movement: July–December 1968, vol. 2, Documents) (MexicoCity: Ediciones Era, 1969)Google Scholar.

51. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and Newsweek referred to deaths ranging from twenty to forty-nine people and from approximately one hundred to five hundred wounded, which reflected the government figures. SeeMontgomery, Paul L., “Deaths Put at 49 in Mexican Clash,” The New York Times, 4 10 1969, p. AlGoogle Scholar; Delmas, Gladys, “Troops' Show of Force Stuns Mexicans,” Washington Post, 4 10 1968, p. A3Google Scholar; and“Mexico: Night of Sadness,” Newsweek, 14 10 1968, pp. 45–48Google Scholar. Because the dead and wounded were taken to the military hospital, which was closed to reporters, it was difficult to get independent estimates of deaths.

52. At the Conference of the Mexico-United States Interparliamentary Group, held five months after the massacre, the chairperson of the Mexican delegation stated: “Mexico affirms that no State has the right to intervene for whatever reason, directly or indirectly, in the affairs of another State.” See address by Deputy Luis Farias, chairman of the Mexican Delegation to the Mexico-United States Interparliamentary Group, in Report of the Ninth Conference of the Mexico-United States Interparliamentary Croup, Aguascalientes, Mexico, April 1969 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969), p. 8Google Scholar.

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58. This included an initial two-year grant of $150,000 and a follow-up grant of $375,000.

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60. Interviews with Rodolfo Stavenhagen, 26 October 1992, and with Christopher Welna, former program officer, Ford Foundation office for Mexico and Central America, 8 October 1992.

61. See Watch, Americas, Guatemalan Refugees in Mexico: 1980–1984 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 09 1984)Google Scholar; and Amnesty International, Mexico: Human Rights in Rural Areas (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1986)Google Scholar, respectively.

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64. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Affairs, Foreign, Current Developments in Mexico: Hearing Before the Subcommittees on Human Rights and International Organizations and on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 12 September 1990, 101st Congress, 2d sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990), pp. 1–97Google Scholar.

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68. According to Dresser, “Foremost among the priorities of Salinas's foreign policy is the avoidance of diplomatic conflicts that might sabotage Mexico's shared economic interests with the U.S.” See Dresser, Denise, “Mr. Salinas Goes to Washington: Mexican Lobbying in the United States,” conference paper no. 62, presented at a research conference entitled “Crossing National Borders: Invasion or Involvement,” Columbia University, New York, 6 12 1991, p. 5Google Scholar.

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70. Krieger, Emilio, “Prélogo” (Prologue), in Guzmán, Sierra et al. , La Comisión National de Derechos Humanos (The National Human Rights Commission), p. ixGoogle Scholar.

71. Lutz discusses the national commission's “hard-hitting recommendations in over 300 cases,” many of which included cases that have been the focus of NGOs. See Lutz, , “Human Rights in Mexico,” p. 80Google Scholar.

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73. Watch, Americas, Prison Conditions in Mexico (New York: Human Rights Watch, 03 1991), p. 46Google Scholar.

74. Mexican Academy for Human Rights, Boletin 5 (02 1989), p. 12Google Scholar.

75. One recent work gives international pressures little credit for promoting democracy in Mexico. This work was based on research that ended in 1989, however, and was not able to observe and comment on the international pressures and domestic changes in the 1989–92 period that are the basis of the argument presented here. See Meyer, Lorenzo, “Mexico: The Exception and the Rule,” in Lowenthal, Abraham F., ed., Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America-Case Studies (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), pp. 93–110Google Scholar.

76. Cases similar to Argentina could be made for some of the other military dictatorships of the Southern Cone, such as Chile and Uruguay. Mexico is unique, both for the lack of attention it received on human rights issues initially and for the rapidity of its response once human rights issues became salient, but there are other cases of semidemocratic governments where targeted international human rights pressures have led to important changes-for example, in the Dominican Republic during the 1978 elections or more recently in Paraguay.

77. Even Guatemala has moved along the continuum from uncompromising rejection of all human rights pressures as illegitimate interferences in sovereignty to a middle position of accepting the legitimacy of international criticism but claiming that it is not responsible and cannot control most of the violence.

78. Interview with Michael Posner, executive director, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, New York, 19 March 1992.

79. Theories of epistemic communities also have stressed the importance of these communities to the policy process in conditions of uncertainty. See Haas, Peter, “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization 46 (Winter 1992), pp. 1–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and pp. 12–16 in particular.

80. See, for example, Stein, Arthur A., “Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 299–324CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81. Donnelly, , Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, pp. 211–12Google Scholar.

82. See, for example, Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy;Hall, Peter A., ed., The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism Across Nations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Sikkink, Kathryn, Ideas and Institutions: Developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Goldstein, Judith, “The Impact of Ideas on Trade Policy: The Origins of U.S. Agricultural and Manufacturing Policies,” International Organization 43 (Winter 1989), pp. 31–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goldstein, Judith, “Ideas, Institutions, and American Trade Policy,“ International Organization 42 (Winter 1988), pp. 179–217CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haas, Ernst B., When Knowledge Is Power: Three Models of Change in International Organizations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Odell, John S., U.S. International Monetary Policy: Markets, Power, and Ideas as Sources of Change (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shafer, Michael, Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; and Adler, Emanuel, The Power of Ideology: The Quest for Technological Autonomy in Argentina and Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

83. See Keck and Sikkink, “International Issue Networks in the Environment and Human Rights”; and Sikkink, Kathryn, “Codes of Conduct for Transnational Corporations: The Case of the WHO/UNICEF Code,” International Organization 40 (Autumn 1986), pp. 815–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84. For an example of an exploration of the human rights issue using both the regime literature and the social movement literature, see Alison Brysk, “From Above and Below: Social Movements, the International System and Human Rights in Argentina,” Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming.

85. For example, Mendlovitz, Saul H. and Walker, R. B. J., eds., Towards a Just World Peace: Perspectives from Social Movements (Boston: Butterworths, 1987)Google Scholar.

86. SeeOnuf, N. G. and Peterson, V. Spike, “Human Rights from an International Regime Perspective,” Journal of International Affairs 37 (Winter 1984), pp. 329–42Google Scholar; and Donnelly, Jack, “International Human Rights: A Regime Analysis,” International Organization 40 (Summer 1986), pp. 599–642CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87. “International Regimes,” special issue, International Organization 36 (Spring 1982)Google Scholar.

88. Keohane, Robert and, eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar.

89. Other works now exploring this blurring of domestic and international politics include the following by Chalmers, Douglas A.: “The International Dimensions of Political Institutions in Latin America: An Internationalized Approach,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 3–6 09 1992, pp. 1–35Google Scholar; and “An End to Foreign Policy: The U.S. and Internationalized Politics,” conference paper no. 60, presented at a research conference entitled “Crossing National Borders: Invasion or Involvement,” Columbia University, New York, 6 December 1991. Another way of theorizing this interpenetration of the domestic and international spheres is the concept of two-level games. See Putnam, Robert, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988), pp. 427–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam, Double-Edged Diplomacy.

90. Risse-Kappen, Thomas, “Transnational Relations, Domestic Structures, and International Institutions: A Conceptual Framework,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 3–6 09 1992Google Scholar.

91. Epistemic communities also share some values, and issue-networks share causal knowledge, but each has a characteristic type of shared idea that defines it and explains the nature of the transnational relations created. Haas has stressed that epistemic communities share both principled and causal ideas, but it is clear from his discussion of the concept, as well as from the cases chosen to illustrate it, that shared causal beliefs under conditions of technical complexity are the hallmarks of the epistemic community. See Haas, , “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” p. 18Google Scholar. This fact is recognized by the one essay on epistemic communities in which activist groups play a key role:Peterson, M. J., “Whalers, Cetologists, Environmentalists, and the International Management of Whaling,” International Organization 46 (Winter 1992), pp. 147–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Peterson argues that the environmentalist groups concerned with whaling do not qualify as an epistemic community. The tendency of these groups to use the “time honored device of making stark contrasts and dividing the world into ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ “ is a clear description of action based primarily on principled rather than causal beliefs (pp. 154–55).