A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights Protection in European Union and African Union Countries: An fsQCA Approach/Avrupa Birligi ve Afrika Birligi Ulkelerinde Insan Haklari Korumasinin fsQCA Yaklasimi ile Karsilastirmali Analizi.

• Author: Adewusi, Emmanuel Oluwatosin

Introduction

The protection of human rights around the world varies across continents despite the overall increase in the ratification of treaties and the establishment of national human rights institutions. Specifically, although both European and African countries have ratified a significant number of human rights treaties, human rights indexes have reflected the fact that the best human rights protection in African countries is performing at the same level as the worst cases in Europe. For example, Italy scored 7.98 in 2019 as the worst case of human rights protection in Western Europe while Mauritius peaked at 7.86 on the human rights index as the best case of protection in Africa. Several National Human Rights Institutions have also been established across the two continents. (1) Although there are substantial differences in human rights protection, improvement is still taking place in terms of some features of democratic government in both regions. More specifically, the strengthening of electoral systems, the freedom of assembly, and inclusiveness have been noted in these regions. (2) The results were generated using several statistical methodologies, such as correlation and regression analysis, to examine the generalized performance of human rights in Europe and Africa. In this article, we compare human rights protection in European Union (EU) and African Union (AU) countries using a Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) approach, by using the data from human rights indexes of 2019. We aim to provide insight into the conditions that account for disparities in the protection of human rights and democratic values across the EU and the AU. The employment of the relatively underused methodology of fsQCA enables us to offer a novel contribution to the human rights literature.

This study contributes to the literature on human rights from two directions. Firstly, it points to multiple causal paths that lead to the protection of human rights with a focus on specific cases in 76 countries: 49 in AU and 27 in EU. (3) These causal paths illustrate how explanations based on assessing the impact of one preliminary variable on the protection of human rights are insufficient. Rather, several configurations provide more comprehensive explanations of human rights protection. Secondly, this study employs a new methodology to analyze the data--fsQCA. Implementing this emerging qualitative comparative analysis method in the human rights context, (4) the study provides an extensive configuration analysis of the conditions that determine the protection of human rights in these regions. This keeps with the study's objective of demonstrating how a combination of variables can be analyzed using a cases-oriented approach in fsQCA to explain human rights protection as a means of supplementing previous studies that have presented single factor explanations. (5)

The article starts with a literature review of univariate, bivariate, and multivariate explanations for the protection of human rights in single cases or groups of cases, alongside the methodologies used in those analyses. Although the studies used correlation and regression analysis, these approaches do not test the casual complexities that result in the interaction among human rights protection variables/conditions. Subsequently, QCA research methodology is discussed and the case for using fsQCA in the current research is presented alongside definitions of the study variables. Treaty, institution, rule of law and per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) have been selected as conditions that interact to improve the protection of human rights. The article concludes with a presentation and discussion of study results. These results demonstrate that multiple paths account for the protection of human rights in Europe and Africa, by showing the relative combined influence of variables in the cases studied, using 2019 indexes. The combinations show that human rights institutions with high per capita GDP or treaty and rule of law are sufficient conditions for the high protection rate of human rights in Europe, while low per capita GDP and absence of rule of law are sufficient conditions that explain the low protection rate of human rights in Africa. This article contributes to the international relations debate on the effectiveness of international regimes with a focus on human rights. Rather than expecting the same conditions to prevail effectively among all countries, it is important for scholars to examine how conditions interact to identify the conditions necessary to improve human rights protection in individual regions.

Univariate Analysis of Factors Contributing to Human Rights Protection

Univariate analyses focus on explaining human rights protection by examining one variable. In previous research, these variables have included the influence of ratifying treaties, establishing human rights institutions, diffusion of human rights norms, and the rule of law.

Ratification of Treaties

Simmons claimed that the ratification of international human rights treaties has improved governments' dispositions toward their citizens' rights in most countries, which is notable in terms of lessening the amount of torture, eliminating religious restrictions, and reducing child labor. (6) Guzman and Linos observed these effects only among moderately democratic countries and new democracies that sought acceptance or approval from the international community. On the other hand, in the case of established democracies, some countries showed the correlation between the ratification of international treaties and deterioration in human rights protection. This inverse relationship linking international treaties to worse human rights protection is what Guzman and Linos termed "human rights backsliding." (7) Therefore, they suggested that international treaties have varying effects among countries.

Nevertheless, international treaties remain the most commonly discussed influence on the protection of human rights. (8) Keith and Donnelly, and other proponents of international treaties, have argued that conventions are sufficient to promote good international human rights practices. (9) Most scholars, however, point to the dubious effect of treaty ratification, which they attribute to the lack of domestication of such treaties, lack of enforcement, and poor state facilities to effectively promote civil and political rights. (10) Similar to Guzman and Linos, other critics have argued that some states only ratify treaties to seek acceptance in the international community. (11) According to Hathaway, countries can deflect pressure for real change (both from internal and external actors) through treaty ratification. (12) She further argued that poorly performing states have continued to increase human rights violations due to the lack of effective monitoring and enforcement apparatus for human rights treaties.

Establishment of Human Rights Institutions

Another single factor explanation discussed by scholars is the creation of human rights institutions, which fall into two categories: international and domestic. While most international human rights institutions are under the umbrella of the United Nations' (UN) established treaties, domestic human rights institutions are established by the countries in compliance with international human rights standards, such as the Paris Principles. Domestic institutions have spread around the globe and have varying effects on countries' human rights performances. The diffusion of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI) in developing countries has shown that this mechanism promotes human rights protection when International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) pressure local actors and governments to establish these institutions. However, other studies focused on the spread of institutions in developing countries, (13) poorly-performing countries, (14) or moderate democracies or new democracies (15) (all of which African countries exemplify), show that issues such as jungle justice (mob rule), xenophobia, kidnapping, child abuse, and rape still feature in human rights cases. (16) At the same time, minority rights violations continue to be uncovered by reports and scholarly works in established or stable democracies (of which Europe is a leading region) as well. (17) This is despite the fact that, as Pegram pointed out, attempts to establish human rights protection in Europe also have included the spread of institutions. (18)

Rule of Law

Several studies, in pursuit of understanding the explanatory variables or determinants of human rights protection, have disregarded the role of rule of law. (19) For example, Regan focused on non-legal variables (i.e., societal attributes on repression levels, international pressure, political and economic ideologies) to explain political repression as a form of human rights violation. (20) Moreover, Dahl assumed that constitutional arrangement was less significant, and his studies focused on the formation of political institutions. (21) Scholars like Pritchard, who have included law as a form of constitutional protection, have not specified which human rights principles in the constitutions were examined. (22) Other studies that attempted to consider the constitution or law have indicated that constitutional protection has an inverse relationship with human rights in terms of protection. Therefore, more constitutional protection has been associated with less human rights protection. Results from Cross' studies examining the constitutional protection of individual rights show that protection against unreasonable search and seizure does not affect the overall performance of human rights. Rather, constitutional protections only affect the method of protecting rights (e.g., how search and seizure take place). Cross carried out his studies by examining a section of the law that may have had an impact on human...