Petitioning for Progress: Victims, Civil Society, and Human Rights Petitions in the United Nations

iCourts Lunch Seminar with Rachel Schoner

Petitioning for Progress examines how victims of human rights abuse and civil society organizations use individual petition mechanisms to seek justice and pressure governments. This quasi-judicial mechanism in UN treaty bodies is distinctive among international institutions, combining elements of both political bodies and international courts. The manuscript focuses on repressive governments, those with routinely poor human rights practices, where this institution is needed most but where victims face significant barriers to access.

This book explores two key questions: (1) Why do victims turn to an international mechanism with no enforcement power? and (2) What effects do these petitions have? Focusing on the Human Rights Committee, this book demonstrates that individual access to international law provides symbolic recognition and meaningful forms of justice to victims.

The book provides empirical support for this theoretical framework through a mixed-methods research design that combines original cross-national data and detailed case studies of human rights petitions. These findings contribute to scholarship on mobilization, human rights, and international law and have implications for practitioners and human rights defenders who face a United Nations under increasing threat.