Trading and Aiding Human Rights Violators: The Negligible Influence of Bilateral Agreements on Respect for Human Rights in Developing Countries Open Access

Abstract

This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of human rights language in trade and foreign aid agreements in positively influencing the human rights behaviors of developing countries. While prior studies have focused on the impact of human rights standards and their described enforcement in trade agreements, my approach puts such standards and enforcement on a scale of strength and compares the relative influences of trade and foreign aid agreements. For this research, I have utilized all available trade and foreign aid agreements made by the European Union with developing countries between 1980 and 2010. By and large, it appears that human rights language in such agreements does not have a positive effect on the human rights behaviors of developing countries. Thus, my findings suggest that using human rights language in bilateral and multilateral agreements to promote higher levels of respect for human rights abroad is an ineffective, and perhaps even counterproductive, strategy for the European Union.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction - 1

Literature Review - 6

General Overview of Factors that Influence Human Rights - 6

Impact of Trade and Trade Agreements on Human Rights - 10

Impact of Foreign Aid on Human Rights - 14

Significant Gaps in the Scholarly Literature - 18

Hypotheses - 20

Data and Methods - 24

Independent Variables - 24

Dependent Variables and Controls - 27

Empirical Model - 30

Analysis and Results - 30

The Effect of Human Rights Language in Agreements - 31

Trade and Aid Dependency - 34

The Regional Effect - 37

The Negotiation Effect - 40

Conclusions - 42

Appendix 1: Variable Descriptions - 48

Appendix 2: Summary of Trade and Foreign Aid Agreements - 50

Bibliography - 51

Tables

Table 1: Human Rights Language in Trade Agreements - 32

Table 2: Human Rights Language in Foreign Aid Agreements - 32

Table 3: Interaction between Human Rights Language and Trade Dependence - 36

Table 4: Interaction between Human Rights Language and Aid Dependence - 37

Table 5: Regional Effect of Trade Agreements and Physical Integrity Rights - 39

Table 6: Regional Effect of Trade Agreements and Empowerment Rights - 39

Table 7: Regional Effect of Foreign Aid Agreements and Physical Integrity Rights - 41

Table 8: Regional Effect of Foreign Aid Agreements and Empowerment Rights - 41

Table 9: Negotiation Effect of Trade Agreements - 43

Table 10: Negotiation Effect of Foreign Aid Agreements - 43

Table 11: Summary of Variable Names and Descriptions - 48

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	International Studies
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, International Law and Relations
Keyword	foreign aid agreements dependence trade agreements human rights European Union developing countries
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Davis III, David, Emory University
Committee Members	Nair-Reichert, Usha, Emory University Reinhardt, Eric, Emory University

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