Abstract
Many – if not most – international human rights agreements specify no requirements for entry or
punishments for non-compliance. If these agreements have no “teeth” of their own, why would any-
one not sign? Why would anyone comply with the international legal commitment? I argue that a
government’s decision to commit to an international human rights agreement depends in large part
on its expectation that the agreement will be enforced domestically. Democracies, which possess
numerous domestic enforcement mechanisms, will tend to be “selective” about commitment, rati-
fying only when they are de facto relatively compliant. In non-democracies, where the likelihood of
domestic enforcement is much lower, the extent of compliant behavior will bear little relation to the
decision to ratify. This has important implications for subsequent treaty compliance. Democracies,
I argue, are more likely to keep their international promises – in large part because they only make
promises they know they can keep. On the other hand, there is little reason to believe that ratifi-
cation alone should improve the human rights practices of non-democracies. Using newly-collected
data, I test these propositions empirically by examining ratification of and compliance with two
of the International Labor Organization’s fundamental conventions: The Convention Concerning
Minimum Age for Admission to Employment; and the Convention Concerning Equal Remunera-
tion for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value. The statistical results largely support
my arguments. These findings provide important insight into current debates among scholars and
policymakers alike about how best to improve human rights conditions around the world.
Convention