Voting Patterns and Diversity of Backgrounds in the United Nations Human Rights Committee

Abstract

The United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC), the monitoring treaty body of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is one of the most important and highly regarded international human rights institutions. This article explores empirically whether the status of specific human rights in the home state of a given Human Rights Committee Member (CM) influences his or her voting patterns on those rights in the HRC. In general, I find no strong evidence that the status of the rights in the CM’s states influences his or her voting patterns on those rights. However, the most noticeable exception to this is that CMs from OECD states are more likely to vote in favor of states in immigration and asylum cases. Also, CMs from OECD states are more likely to vote in general in favor of states. This might indicate that at times, the votes of CMs are influenced by their own life experience, and perhaps reflect their roles as agents protecting their state’s interests.