Preferences or blocs? Voting in the United Nations Human Rights Council

Do Human Rights Offenders Oppose Human Rights Resolutions in the United Nations?

We investigate voting behavior on human rights in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Our central question is whether countries with a low human rights record systematically oppose human rights resolutions. An instrumental account of voting would suggest that these countries aim to weaken UN human rights resolutions since they could be future targets of these policies. If reputation asp...

Maternal mortality and human rights: landmark decision by United Nations human rights body.

79 Reducing the world’s maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015 is one objective of Millennium Development Goal 5. However, progress towards this objective has been slow,1 despite global commitment and the fact that the majority of maternal deaths, 99% of which occur in developing countries,2 can be prevented through well known interventions. So what more is needed to g...

when actions speak louder than words: the human rights record of the united nations

this article examines the human rights abuses perpetrated by the united nationsmissions in places like kosovo, congo and haiti where the united nations powerhas been practically comparable to the state power. it will also investigate similarcases of abuses committed by highest-ranking un officials in new yorkheadquarter and geneva offices. the violations examined in this article include notjust...

Voting Blocs , Coalitions and Parties ∗

In this paper I study the strategic implications of coalition formation in an assembly. A coalition forms a voting bloc to coordinate the voting behavior of its members, acting as a single player and affecting the policy outcome. I prove that there exist stable endogenous voting bloc structures, and in an assembly with two parties I show how the incentives to join a bloc depend on the types of ...

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