| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines states' voting records at the United Nations Human Rights Commission/Council during the period 1992-2008 on resolutions targeting specific countries, and tests competing hypotheses about voting behaviour derived from liberal and realist theory. I conclude that a liberal framework explains voting behaviour on resolutions addressing most states and show that democracies were more likely than non-democracies to support resolutions criticizing states with poor human rights records. However, I also show that the liberal framework fails to explain voting behaviour on resolutions addressing Israel because the issue uniquely polarized states according to geo-political groupings - Western democracies often opposed resolutions addressing Israel, but developing world states often supported these resolutions. These findings hold for both the Commission and its successor body: the Human Rights Council.
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