Reference no: EM131449501

Part nine of our international law book does a very good job of bringing our study full circle.  What are some of the most important ways that core legal principles have evolved.

400 words please list references

Lesson:

This week's lesson is excerpted from an article written by three APUS professors,  Michelle Watts, Kate Brannum, and Kim Ruff and published in Latin American Policy.  

Ultimately, our work examines whether norm diffusion and commitment to international norms has led to advances in citizenship. Recent scholarship has focused on the extent to which, and the circumstances under which, norms affect people's lives. Issues of compliance with human rights treaties are particularly complex because of the lack of incentive to cooperate, the absence of interstate damage caused by violation, and the nonreciprocal character of human rights treaties. Direct effects of respecting or violating human rights norms generally do not cross borders. Because of this, cooperation in the promotion of human rights does not rest on governments constraining their own actions in exchange for the cooperation of others, as does cooperation on many other issues, such as international trade. Efforts to promote compliance with human rights norms are limited because a government has no immediate material interest in acting on the behalf of citizens of another state. There is no self-interested reason for external enforcement. Many scholars have turned to the idea of norm diffusion and socialization.

According to Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink (1999), socialization leads states to make certain initial concessions to international norms, and domestic and transnational pressures move them to further comply. The idea is that states will move through a series of stages until eventually compliance will become fairly consistent. Panama has clearly moved to a state where it has demonstrated a willingness to be active in the development of new conventions, such as the OAS Working Group to Prepare the Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Moreover, the interaction of Panamanian tribal groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with transnational networks has meant that there is more domestic pressure. Nevertheless, the Martinelli administration, while taking a fairly active role in the international community and making some tactical concessions, continues to violate human rights norms and to take a confrontational approach to activists (ACPJ, 2012). It is not clear if this will lead to further improvements or if Panama will continue in a "gray zone" (Carothers, 2002).

The realist explanation of international norms, which assumes that states use norms as a tool of power politics (Krasner & Mearsheimer), does not provide an adequate explanation for Panama's actions, nor can Panama's behavior be fully understood by a constructivist approach. As Vaughn Shannon (2000) points out, "Constructivists... explain patterns of conformity better than instances of violation, given their sociological focus on structure and obligatory action" (293). Shannon, who also rejects the rationalist idea that states violate norms whenever they conflict with state interest, proposes using a psychological approach to explain state behavior. He argues that states violate a norm that is not in their self-interest when "... there is room for interpretation of the norm or the situation" (p. 294). If state actors can justify their behavior not only to others but also to themselves, they are more likely to violate a norm. This idea provides a framework to help us understand Panama's violation of international norms in its treatment of the indigenous people. Shannon goes much further in explaining norm violation without minimizing the importance of norms. Shannon's approach seems particularly useful to explain Panama's violations of the right to consent in its approval of hydroelectric dams and mining. Panama is a state that clearly values its international standing and publicly advocates international norms, but in some cases, the Panamanian government's actions belie its statements on compliance with international norms. In these cases, such as hydroelectric dams, competing and unclear norms allow the government to justify prioritizing economic ends over indigenous rights. Economics have long complicated relations between the indigenous people and the government.