Can individual participation in international legal institutions affect state behavior? Much of the existing literature believes that international law has a limited effect in the countries where it’s needed the most, especially in the absence of enforcement mechanisms. Focused on repressive regimes, this paper analyzes petitions (complaints) filed by victims of human rights abuse in United Nations human rights treaty bodies. As a form of naming and shaming, I theorize that violation decisions– in which a monitoring body confirms a treaty violation– may improve human rights when paired with civil society organizations that publicize the decisions. Leveraging a new dataset, I find that governments improve respect for the most severe abuses involving bodily harm immediately after violation decisions. In support of the theory, these short-lived effects are driven by petitions where civil society actors are listed as representation. This work improves our understanding of the role of non-state actors in global politics and compliance with international institutions. International organizations can, under certain conditions, provide information on non-compliance that sufficiently pressures governments to change domestic practices and decrease repression.

个人参与国际法律机构能否影响国家行为？许多现有文献认为，国际法在最需要国际法的国家的作用有限，特别是在缺乏执行机制的情况下。本文以镇压政权为重点，分析了人权侵犯受害者向联合国人权条约机构提出的请愿（投诉）。作为点名和羞辱的一种形式，我认为，违规决定（监督机构确认违反条约行为）与公开这些决定的民间社会组织合作可能会改善人权。利用新的数据集，我发现政府在做出违规决定后立即提高了对涉及身体伤害的最严重虐待行为的尊重。为了支持这一理论，这些短暂的影响是由请愿书驱动的，其中民间社会行为者被列为代表。这项工作提高了我们对非国家行为者在全球政治中的作用以及遵守国际机构的理解。在某些条件下，国际组织可以提供有关违规行为的信息，足以迫使政府改变国内做法并减少镇压。