Dealing with Human Rights in International Organisations

Over time human rights have gained prominence in international organizations. At the same time, dealing with them has proved difficult and contentious. The present paper focuses on the way in which the United Nations have addressed human rights issues, especially through the Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) and its successor the Human Rights Council (UNHRC). By analyzing in detail in a comparative fashion the votes in these two bodies, the paper shows that despite the high hopes expressed with the creation of the UNHRC this latter institutional innovation faces some of the same challenges as its predecessor. The paper shows that an IRT-model taking into account the target of the resolution and its proposer together with their human rights record considerably influence the voting behavior in these two bodies