Publications by Author:

2015
Simmons, Beth A, and Cosette Creamer. 2015. “Do Self-Reporting Regimes Matter? Evidence from the Convention against Torture.” International Studies Association. New Orleans, Louisiana. Abstract

Human rights treaty bodies have for many years now been criticized as useless and self-reporting widely viewed as a whitewash. Yet very little research explores what, if any, influence this periodic review process has on governments’ implementation of and compliance with treaty obligations. We argue oversight committees may play an important role by providing information for international and domestic audiences. This paper examines the effects of self-reporting and oversight review, using original data on the quality and responsiveness of reports submitted to the Committee Against Torture (CmAT) and a dynamic approach to strengthen causal inference about the effects of the periodic review process on rights practices. We find that the review process in fact does reduce the incidence of torture in self-reporting states. Furthermore, we find that local media attention to the process in Latin American spikes during the review process, consistent with domestic awareness and mobilization made possible by media attention to torture practices and treaty obligations. Thus, this is the first study to present positive evidence on the effects of self-reporting on torture outcomes, contrary to the many studies that assert the process is basically useless.

creamersimmons_isa2015.pdf
2014
Simmons, Beth A. 2014. “Ranking the Rankings.” The Economist. Publisher's Version Abstract

Education ministers across the globe quake in the run-up to the publication, every three years, of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which rates 15-year-olds’ academic performance in dozens of countries. Those that do well can expect glory; the first PISA ranking, published in 2001, surprised the world by putting unshowy Finland near the top in every subject and made it a mandatory stop-off for any self-respecting education policymaker. Germany’s poor showing, by contrast, led to national hand-wringing, school reforms and the creation of a €4 billion ($5 billion) federal education support programme.

Simmons, Beth A., Volha Charnysh, and Paulette Lloyd. 2014. “Frames and Consensus Formation in International Relations: The Case of Trafficking in Persons.” European Journal of International Relations. Abstract

This article examines the process of consensus formation by the international community on how to confront the problem of trafficking in persons. We analyze the corpus of UNGA Third Committee resolutions to show that (1) consensus around the issue of how to confront trafficking in persons has increased over time; and (2) the formation of this consensus depends on how the issue is framed. We test our argument by examining the characteristics of resolutions’ sponsors and discursive framing concepts such as crime, human rights, and the strength of enforcement language. We conclude that the consensus formation process in international relations is more aptly described as one of “accommodation” through issue linkage than a process of persuasion.

frame_and_consensus_eijr.pdf

The regime for international investment is extraordinary in public international law and controversial in many regions of the world. This article explores two aspects of this set of rules: its decentralization and the unusual powers it gives to private actors to invoke dispute settlement. Decentralization has contributed to a competitive environment for ratification of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and has elevated the importance of dyadic bargaining power in the formation of the regime. Governments of developing countries are more likely to enter into BITs and tie their hands more tightly when they are in a weak bargaining position, which in turn is associated with economic downtowns of the domestic economy. Once committed, investors have sued governments with surprising regularity, arguably contributing disproportionately to legal awards that favor the private corporate actors who have the power to convene the dispute settlement system. One of the conclusions is that it is important not only to consider whether BITs attract capital - which hs been the focus of nearly all the empirical research on BIT effects - but also to investigate the governance consequences of the international investment regime generally.

Simmons, Beth A., and Richard A. Nielsen. 2014. “Rewards for Ratification: Payoffs for Participating in the International Human Rights Regime?” International Studies Quarterly. Abstract

Among the explanations for state ratification of human rights treaties, few are more common and widely accepted than the conjecture that states are rewarded for ratification by other states. These rewards are expected to come in the form of tangible benefits - foreign aid, trade, and investment - and intangible benefits such as praise, acceptance, and legitimacy. Surprisingly, these explanations for ratification have never been tested empirically. We summarize and clarify the theoretical underpinnings of "reward-for-ratification" theories and test these propositions empirically by looking for increased international aid, economic agreements and public praise and recognition following ratification of four prominent human rights treaties. We find almost no evidence that states can expect increased tangible or intangible rewards after ratification. Given the lack of empirical support, alternative explanations seem more appealing for understanding human rights treaty ratification.

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Simmons, Beth A., and Judith Kelley. 2014. “Politics by Number: Indicators as Social Pressure in International Relations.” American Journal of Political Science. Abstract

The ability to monitor state behavior has become a critical tool of international governance. Systematic monitoring allows for the creation of numerical indicators that can be used to rank, compare and essentially censure states. This article argues that the ability to disseminate such numerical indicators widely and instantly constitutes an exercise of social power, with the potential to change important policy outputs. It explores this argument in the context of the United States’ efforts to combat trafficking in persons and find evidence that monitoring has important effects: countries are more likely to criminalize human trafficking when they are included in the US annual Trafficking in Persons Report, while countries that are placed on a “watch list” are also more likely to criminalize. These findings have broad implications for international governance and the exercise of soft power in the global information age.

kelley_and_simmons_ajps.pdf
2013
Simmons, Beth A, Zachary Elkins, and Tom Ginsburg. 2013. “Getting to Rights: Treaty Ratification, Constitutional Convergence, and Human Rights Practice.” International Law Journal 54 (1): 201-234. Abstract

This Article examines the adoption of rights in national constitutions in the post-World War II period in light of claims of global convergence. Using a comprehensive database on the contents of the world's constitutions, we observe a qualified convergence on the content of rights. Nearly every single right has increased in prevalence since its introduction, but very few are close to universal. We show that international rights documents, starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have shaped the rights menu of national constitutions in powerful ways. These covenants appear to coordinate the behavior of domestic drafters, whether or not the drafters' countries are legally committed to the agreements (though commitment enhances the effect). Our particular focus is on the all-important International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose ratification inclines countries towards rights they, apparently, would not otherwise adopt. This finding confirms the complementary relationship between treaty ratification and domestic constitutional norms, and suggests that one important channel of treaty efficacy may be through domestic constitutions.

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2012
Simmons, Beth A. 2012. “Reflections on Mobilizing for Human Rights.” Journal of International Law and Politics 44: 729-750. Abstract

NYU Law's symposium "From Rights to Reality: Mobilizing for Human Rights and Its Intersection with International Law" has been a valuable opportunity to reflect on the role that international law has played in the furtherance of human rights around the world over the past six decades. It has also been a stimulating forum to assess the state of our knowledge, experience, and research relating to the development of human rights law and its application in various settings around the world. The scholars and practitioners participating in this symposium have each made remarkable contributions to the development, interpretation, and application of human rights law internationally, and I am very grateful that they have taken the time to engage the arguments and evidence in Mobilizing for Human Rights. The editors of the Journal of International Law and Politics are to be congratulated on a stimulating symposium and a valuable volume.

In this concluding article, I will describe what Mobilizing for Human Rights set out to do, what I think it did well, and what it did not, in the end, accomplish. There is much to mention on both scores. While the book was one of the first comprehensive efforts to theorize and test empirically the effects of international legal agreements on a broad range of rights indicators, the research necessarily fails to speak to some issues, raises additional questions, and opens up new avenues for empirical research. I will also engage the observations of my colleagues in the symposium, whose supportive as well as skeptical views I very much appreciate. I hope to make clearer how the research potentially connects with strategies for rights improvements. I conclude on a very humble note: the experience represented by the symposium participants far outstrips the scholarly findings of the book, but I am hopeful that discussion of the kind we have had leads both to better scholarship and broadly informed practice.

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2010
Simmons, Beth A. 2010. “Treaty Compliance and Violation.” Annual Review of Political Science 13: 273-296. Publisher's Version Abstract
International law has enjoyed a recent renaissance as an important subfield of study within international relations. Two trends are evident in the recent literature. First, the obsession with theoretical labels is on the decline. Second, empirical, especially quantitative, work is burgeoning. This article reviews the literature in four issues areas—security, war, and peace; international trade; protection of the environment; and human rights—and concludes we have a much stronger basis for assessing claims about compliance and violation now than was the case only a few years ago. Still, the literature suffers from a few weaknesses, including problems of selection and endogeneity of treaties themselves and an enduring state-centric focus, despite the fact that researchers recognize that nonstate and substate actors influence treaty behavior. Nonetheless, the quality and quantity of new work demonstrates that international law has regained an important place in the study of international politics.
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Simmons, Beth A, and Alison Danner. 2010. “Credible Commitments and the International Criminal Court.” International Organization 64 (2): 225-256. Abstract
The creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute war crimes poses a real puzzle. Why was it created, and more importantly, why do states agree to join this institution? The ICC represents a serious intrusion into a traditional arena of state sovereignty: the right to administer justice to one’s one nationals. Yet more than one hundred states have joined. Social scientists are hardly of one mind about this institution, arguing that it is (alternately) dangerous or irrelevant to achieving its main purposes: justice, peace, and stability. By contrast, we theorize the ICC as a mechanism to assist states in self-binding, and draw on credible commitments theory to understand who commits to the ICC, and the early consequences of such commitments. This approach explains a counterintuitive finding: the states that are both the least and the most vulnerable to the possibility of an ICC case affecting their citizens have committed most readily to the ICC, while potentially vulnerable states with credible alternative means to hold leaders accountable do not. Similarly, ratification of the ICC is associated with tentative steps toward violence reduction and peace in those countries precisely least likely to be able to commit credibly to forswear atrocities. These findings support the potential usefulness of the ICC as a mechanism for some governments to commit to ratchet down violence and get on the road to peaceful negotiations.
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2009
Simmons, Beth A. 2009. “Civil Rights in International Law: Compliance with Aspects of the ‘International Bill of Rights’.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 16 (2): 437-481. Abstract
International law has developed what many might consider a constitutional understanding of individual civil rights that individuals can claim vis-a-vis their own governments. This paper discusses the development of aspects of international law relating to civil rights, and argues that if this body of law is meaningful we should see evidence of links between acceptance of international legal obligation and domestic practices. Recognizing that external forms of enforcement of civil rights is unlikely (because not generally in the interest of potential "enforcers"), I argue that international civil rights treaties will have their greatest effect where stakeholders - local citizens - have the motive and the means to demand treaty compliance. This is most likely to be the case not in stable autocracies, where such demands are likely to be crushed, nor in stable democracies, where the motive to mobilize is attenuated due to rights saturation, but in transitional countries where the expected value of mobilization is maximized. Thus, I test the hypothesis that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is likely to have its greatest positive effects in transitional countries - those that have had some fleeting experience with democratic governance. This proposition is tested quantitatively with indicators for freedom of religious practice and fair trials. The proposition is weakly supported by extremely stringent statistical models that control for the endogeneity of the treaty commitments, country and year fixed effects, and other obvious influences on civil rights practices. I conclude that the International Bill of Rights has the power to influence the direction of rights practices in fluid political situations, but cannot magically transform autocracies into liberal guarantors of civil liberties. Still, these effects are important, and the most we can expect from scraps of paper which the international community has been reluctant to enforce.
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Simmons, Beth A. 2009. “Should States Ratify the Protocol? Process and Consequences of the Optional Protocol of the ICESCR.” Norwegian Journal of Human Rights 27 (1). Abstract
Proponents and opponents of ratification of the ICESCR‟s Optional Protocol have both exaggerated the consequences of giving individuals a “private right of standing” before the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. But this article argues that, on balance, ratification should be encouraged. Individuals will bring new and urgent issues to the international agenda, and the dialog will help to encourage a better sense of states‟ international legal obligations under the treaty. The consequences for ESC rights are likely to be modestly positive, if outcomes under the OP of the ICCPR are any guide. Even states that already respect ESC rights in their domestic law should ratify, because there is a tendency, judging by the ratification behaviour relating to similar agreements, for states to emulate ratification practices of other states in their region. Ratification will neither end deprivation nor damage the credibility of the international legal system. It will be a modest step forward in consensus-formation of the meaning of ESC rights, which in turn is a positive step toward their ultimate provision.
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Simmons, Beth A. 2009. “Should States Ratify the Protocol? Process and Consequences of the Optional Protocol of the ICESCR.” Norwegian Journal of Human Rights 27 (1): 64-81. Abstract

Proponents and opponents of ratification of the ICESCR‟s Optional Protocol have both exaggerated the consequences of giving individuals a “private right of standing” before the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. But this article argues that, on balance, ratification should be encouraged. Individuals will bring new and urgent issues to the international agenda, and the dialog will help to encourage a better sense of states‟ international legal obligations under the treaty. The consequences for ESC rights are likely to be modestly positive, if outcomes under the OP of the ICCPR are any guide. Even states that already respect ESC rights in their domestic law should ratify, because there is a tendency, judging by the ratification behaviour relating to similar agreements, for states to emulate ratification practices of other states in their region. Ratification will neither end deprivation nor damage the credibility of the international legal system. It will be a modest step forward in consensus-formation of the meaning of ESC rights, which in turn is a positive step toward their ultimate provision.

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This volume argues that international human rights law has made a positive contribution to the realization of human rights in much of the world. Although governments sometimes ratify human rights treaties, gambling that they will experience little pressure to comply with them, this is not typically the case. Focusing on rights stakeholders rather than the United Nations or state pressure, Beth Simmons demonstrates through a combination of statistical analyses and case studies that the ratification of treaties leads to better rights practices on average. Simmons argues that international human rights law should get more practical and rhetorical support from the international community as a supplement to broader efforts to address conflict, development, and democratization.

Appendices for the book are available below for download:

2008
Simmons, Beth A, Frank Dobbin, and Geoffrey Garrett. 2008. The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy. Abstract
The diffusion of markets and democracy around the world was a defining feature of the late twentieth century. Many social scientists view this economic and political liberalization as the product of independent choices by national governments. This book argues that policy and political changes were influenced heavily by prior actions of external actors: not just other governments, but international organizations and communities of experts. Drawing together insights from economics, sociology, political science and international relations, the contributors focus on four mechanisms by which markets and democracy have diffused through interdependent decision-making: coercion and the impact of powerful countries and international actors; economic competition for markets and investment; learning from experiences of other countries; and emulation among countries. These mechanisms are tested empirically using sophisticated quantitative techniques in areas as diverse as capital account and investment policy, human rights and democratization, and government downsizing, privatization and taxation.
2007
Simmons, Beth A, and Richard H Steinberg. 2007. International Law and International Relations. Abstract
This volume is intended to help readers understand the relationship between international law and international relations (IL/IR). As a testament to this dynamic area of inquiry, new research on IL/IR is now being published in a growing list of traditional law reviews and disciplinary journals. The excerpted articles in this volume, all of which were first published in International Organization, represent some of the most important research since serious social science scholarship began in this area more than twenty years ago. They are important milestones toward making IL/IR a central concern of scholarly research in international affairs. The contributions cover some of the main topics of international affairs to provide readers with a range of theoretical perspectives, concepts, and heuristics that can be used to analyze the relationship between international law and international relations.
2006
Simmons, Beth A. 2006. “The Future of Central Bank Cooperation”. Abstract
Central bank cooperation depends on a few crucial parameters: the extent to which central bankers agree on theory (end means relationships); the extent to which they can agree on goals (social purpose); the capacity (technical and institutional) to achieve their collective goals; and whether the broader political environment facilitates or impedes cooperation. This article explores these questions by first providing an overview of central banks and bankers. Among the G-10 countries, central bankers are likely to share political independence, relatively long term horizons, and (increasingly) academic backgrounds. These conditions may be conducive to high levels of cooperation in the future. Second, I explore the “easiest” form of cooperation – information sharing – and conclude that this is an area in which central bank cooperation will become increasingly routinised. Cooperation to address global financial stability is a more difficult cooperative dilemma, with tensions between the need for efficient regulatory management and the inclusion of a broader range of cooperating institutions. In the area of exchange rate and monetary policy coordination, consensus among the major exchange rate authorities regarding the effectiveness of coordinated exchange market interventions has withered, though this does not preclude a new consensus from emerging in the future. One of the most significant challenges to central bank cooperation in the future will be how to include rising monetary and financial powers, particularly China, into the cooperative management of international monetary conditions.
Also Bank for International Settlements Working Paper #200.
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2005

With Daniel Hopkins. American Political Science Review (forthcoming, August 2005)

We acknowledge the contribution of von Stein (200X) in calling attention to the very real problem of selection bias in estimating treaty effects. Nonetheless, we dispute both von Stein?s theoretical and empirical conclusions. Theoretically, we contend that treaties can both screen and constrain simultaneously, meaning that findings on screening do nothing to undermine the claim that treaties constrain state behavior as well. Empirically, we questions von Stein?s estimator on several grounds, including its strong distributional assumptions and its statistical inconsistency. We then illustrate that selection bias does not account for much of the difference between Simmons? (2000) and von Stein?s (200x) estimated treaty effects, and instead reframe the problem as one of model dependency. Using a preprocessing matching step to reduce that dependency, we then illustrate treaty effects that are both substantively and statistically significant – and that are quiet close in magnitude to those reported by Simmons (2000).

Are smaller members of the World Trade Organization able to use the WTO?s dispute settlement mechanism on an equal footing with the more powerful members of the organization? This paper examines the relationship between the wealth and power of states and their ability to participate fully within this system of dispute resolution. Two alternative hypotheses are considered. The "power hypothesis" predicts that politically weak countries will refrain from filing complaints against politically powerful states for fear of costly retaliation. The "capacity hypothesis" predicts the opposite – low income states will tend to complain about behavior by high income states because the latter offer a higher expected return.
Using the set of all WTO disputes we test these two hypotheses and find considerable support for the capacity hypothesis and no support for the power hypothesis. We conclude that poor states behave differently than their rich counterparts because they lack the financial, human, and institutional capital to participate fully in the dispute resolution system.

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Territorial disputes between governments generate a significant amount of uncertainty for economic actors. Settled boundary agreements produce benefits to economic agents on both sides of the border. These qualities of borders are missed both by realists, who view territorial conflicts in overly zero–sum terms, and globalists, who claim borders are increasingly irrelevant. I argue that settled borders help to secure property rights, signal much greater jurisdictional and policy certainty, and thereby reduce the transactions costs associated with international economic transactions. The plausibility of this claim is examined by showing that territorial disputes involve significant economic opportunity costs in the form of foregone bilateral trade. Theories of territorial politics should take into account the possibility of such joint gains in their models of state dispute behavior.

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