The Argumentative Power of International Law: Legal Rhetoric, Human Rights, and the Universal Periodic Review

Abstract

What makes a human rights argument effective? When challenging a state's human rights practices, actors can draw on a range of discursive options and frames. Current research on human rights argumentation highlights the strategic use of different rhetorical frames by actors to create political outcomes on a case-by-case basis. This analysis, however, is the first to measure the determinants of effective argumentation, the role of legal rhetoric, and the patterns that make successful arguments, on a global and systematic scale. This study uses data on all recommendations from the first two cycles of the Universal Periodic Review, covering all United Nations member states, a United Nations mechanism by which all states are reviewed regularly on their human rights practices. Using an original coding of legal and nonlegal recommendations, this paper tests the theory that arguments framed on legal references will be the most effective, emphasizing the particular importance of legal rhetoric in international politics. The findings support this theory, showing that human rights arguments framed with legal references are substantially more likely to succeed than those framed on other grounds. These findings raise important points for the role of legal rhetoric in human rights and in international relations more broadly.