The conditional effects of international human rights institutions

Much research on effects of international human rights institutions (IHRIs) is fixated on whether IHRIs have - "on balance" or "systematically" - generated domestic effect. This essay highlights the path-dependent and conditional nature of domestic effects of IHRIs that the current scholarship has either willfully ignored or proven unable to take seriously. It focuses on causal mechanisms by which IHRIs, as codification of rights and as treaty organizations, impact domestic human rights practice by empowering domestic human rights stakeholders and thereby indirectly influencing states' human rights practice. The essay sheds further light on the conditions under which IHRIs empower domestic stakeholders.