**1. Introduction**

The global community has made grea<sup>t</sup> efforts in the protection of human rights since the end of WWII. The International Bill of Human Rights sets the protection of human rights as a common standard for all peoples and nations and intends to promote these rights by "progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction" (pages 1–2, The International Bill of Human Rights). According to Article 4 in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, religious freedom is one of the non-derogable rights. Due to this it has a special status in international human rights regimes and is broadly supported by transnational activism. However, due to the lack of enforcement mechanisms in human rights regimes, efforts to improve human rights mainly are incentive and norm based. States are expected to improve rights practices under the criticism on the international stage (Brysk 1993; Hendrix and Wong 2013; Khagram et al. n.d.; Sikkink 1993). International human rights organizations are powerful in the protection of human rights through transnational advocacy networks, which transmit information on domestic rights violations and mobilize the international audience to pressure states to change their behaviors (Keck and Sikkink 1999). States are also expected to change their behavior in human rights protection in a spiral model, in which they eventually internalize international human rights standards and change behaviors despite their initial denial (Risse et al. 1999).

Recent scientific studies have provided extensive evidence of the positive effects of HROs on rights protection. HROs not only improve human rights protection directly, but also exert influence indirectly through the third actors, such as western democracies who use information HROs provide (Peksen 2009, 2012). However, there are two shortcomings in the current state of research in the study of HROs on human rights protection. First, the current literature in the scientific study of international human rights narrowly focuses on the protection of physical integrity. Second, current literature has not given enough attention to the dual nature of human rights: the individual and institutional dimensions.

This study not only expands the scope of international human rights study into religious freedom, but also takes account of both individual and organizational dimensions of religious rights. The factor analysis of governmen<sup>t</sup> religious restriction index clearly indicates why the institutional and individual restrictions should be considered separately.

**Citation:** Zhang, Lihui. 2021. Are International Human Rights Organizations Effective in Protecting Religious Freedom? *Religions* 12: 479.https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12070479

Academic Editors: Timothy Shah and Nathan A. Berkeley

Received: 21 April 2021 Accepted: 23 June 2021 Published: 28 June 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

I use fixed effect models in this study to examine whether international human rights organizations influence the level of religious restrictions over time. It is a contribution to the study of religious freedom, because most of the past research has focused on a set of point in time. I find that the domestic presence of HROs has a positive effect on the protection of aggregate religious rights, both for institutional and individual religious rights over time. However, it does not mean that differentiating institutional and individual religious rights is not necessary. In fact, the statistical models show that these two categories of rights are associated with different demographics and characteristics of a country. For example, restrictions on religious institutions tend to be higher in societies with a relatively homogenous religious scene or an established religion, but religious individual rights are not influenced by those factors. This has important implications for our understanding of where religious institutions face the greatest obstacles to their autonomy.

This study adds to the existing literature in the following ways: first, it enriches the scientific study of international human rights by seriously investigating religious rights, given the overemphasis of physical integrity in current scholarship. I argue that religious rights represent *spiritual integrity* and are equally important as *physical integrity*. Expanding the scope of the human rights enables us to have a comprehensive understanding of the factors could help protect human rights, but also advances theoretical development in the field of human rights. Second, this study takes account institutional religious rights by recognizing and differentiating the individual and institutional/organizational dimensions of human rights. Human rights in general have both public/communal and private dimensions. Without taking account of both dimensions, the study of effects of human rights protections is not complete. Overlooking the organizational (or institutional) dimension of human rights also hinders theoretical and policy development in human rights studies. In showing the vital role of HROs in advancing religious freedom, this paper indicates the need for human rights organizations, such as the Religious Freedom Institute, with a special focus on religious freedom. Not all human rights organizations demonstrate an awareness of the unique nature of religious freedom, or how violations of this right affect the fate of general human rights around the globe.

#### **2. Literature Review: HROs Advocacy and Human Rights Practices**

Early work in empirical studies provide theoretical foundations for the effects of HRO advocacy on human rights protection. International human rights organizations (HROs) enjoy advantages in transnational networks and information to better hold states accountable for their rights violations. The domestic presence of HROs can pressure oppressing regimes from below through the support for local social movements, and from above through the third-party states that cite reports generated by HROs (Peksen 2009, 2012). In reality, domestic actors often cannot pressure states directly, therefore, they seek transnational advocacy networks to bring material and moral leverage to change states' behavior (Keck and Sikkink 1999). In the spiral model of human rights norm diffusion, we see a discursive causal process linking HRO advocacy on human rights practices. Rights violating states often first deny the abuses alleged by HROs, but repressive states will institutionalize human rights provisions, eventually internalize human rights norms, and change their behavior under the concentrated and continued pressure from HROs and the international community (Risse et al. 1999).

Echoing the spiral model of human rights norm diffusion, the world society approach in sociology offers another theoretical perspective on how international institutions and culture influence the behaviors of nation states and domestic actors. The expansion of HROs contributes to the extensive horizontal institutionalization in world society, which defines the meaning and identity of various actors and appropriate patterns of activities. Therefore, HROs lead to the adoption of norms of human rights protection among nation states and domestic actors through collective purposes and identities constructed by world culture (Meyer et al. 1997; Simmons et al. 2008; Tsutsui and Wotipka 2004).

Recent quantitative cross-national studies provide extensive evidence of the relationship between HROs and human rights practices. Even though it is quite consistent that increases in HRO shaming lead to improvement in human rights (DeMeritt 2012; Krain 2012; Murdie 2014), rights violators are only vulnerable to international pressure and improve their human rights when HROs criticize them (Franklin 2008; Murdie 2014). For example, when women's rights protection is examined specifically, the effect of HROs is more nuanced. Women's rights international non-governmental organizations (WROs) are effective in improving governmen<sup>t</sup> respect for women' rights in general. However, a targeted naming and shaming publicity strategy is necessary to exert pressure on the government to enforce women's internationally recognized rights (Murdie and Peksen 2015). Similarly, Murdie and Davis (2012) find that HROs presence, paired with HROs targeting with third party pressure can improve human rights conditions. The domestic presence of HROs leads to naming and shaming campaigns, and more attention and condemnation of the human rights abuses by Amnesty international (Meernik et al. 2012). This indicates that the domestic presence of HROs can have effect on the rights protection indirectly through naming and shaming campaigns.

More studies render nuanced findings. The effects of the presence and activities of HROs might be conditional. The influence of naming and shaming is conditioned by the level economic integration condition in a country (Franklin 2008); HRO criticism tends to work better when the countries have stronger ties with other countries. HRO activities also have different effects depending on the context and types of rights violations. The presence of HRO members in neighboring countries increases the probability of human rights improvements, but that is conditional on the ability of the groups to freely move across borders (Bell et al. 2012). The effect of human rights advocacy might also be contingent upon regime type. HRO activity provides information, which matters more for actors engaged in covert abuses like torture but not for actors engaged in overt abuses like death penalty. Therefore, advocacy can lead to improved outcomes in autocracies, which tend to engage in covert abuses that HRO activity publicizes. Democracies, on the other hand, tend to engage in overt abuses, like the death penalty, and HRO activity does not provide new info to the public (Hendrix and Wong 2013). Emilie M. Hafner-Burton (2008) finds that naming and shaming have negative relationships for some rights, but positive relationships for other rights. Public criticism by NGOs, the UN, and the media improves political rights, but does not reduce political terror (killings and beatings), because governments' capacities for human rights improvements vary across types of violations. Governments strategically use some violations to offset other improvements they make in response to international pressure. In addition, central governments might not have the ability to immediately improve human rights conditions happening on a local level even if they intend to (Bagwell and Clay 2017), because of the state capacity. The effect of human rights institutions might also condition on time. Cole and Ramirez (2013) find that the effect of national human rights institutions not only differs by the type of rights, but also by time: right violation increases initially but decreases later.

HROs also have an indirect effect on human rights conditions through the third parties. According to the boomerang (Keck and Sikkink 1999) and spiral models (Risse et al. 1999), advocacy groups not only directly pressure violating states, but also mobilize third parties, such as international organizations and western democracies, to pressure targeted states to change behaviors. HROs can provide information and set the agenda for other international actors through targeting campaigns. For example, the United States uses information provided by Amnesty International to pressure other states to change human rights conditions (Brysk 1993). Even though HROs, as moral agents, apply moral pressure to violators, third party actors can apply material pressure to change abusing states' behaviors. States are also expected to have better human rights practice and better compliance with international law when they have joined more inter-governmental organizations, because violation of their legal obligations in the international communities

magnifies shaming effects (Keck and Sikkink 1999; Goodman and Jinks 2004; Risse et al. 1999).

Despite of the extensive studies done on the effect of HROs on human rights, there are two shortcomings in the current state of literature. There is a narrow focus on the protection of human rights. The extant studies have mostly focused on the protection of physical integrity rights, so there is a need to explore whether the mechanism of HROs work the same for other kinds of rights. Studies have discovered that HROs have different effects on different kinds of rights (Hafner-Burton 2008; Hendrix and Wong 2013). Expanding the scope of human rights can strengthen the external validity of the results of current statistical analysis in human rights studies. As such an effort, this study focuses on the religious rights. Religious freedom, as a spiritual integrity right, is often marginalized in the scientific study of international human rights, but it is a recognized international norm in human rights, and of grea<sup>t</sup> importance to the dignity and wellbeing of individuals and groups with religious beliefs. Given the wide spread of religious restrictions (Fox 2015, 2021) and discrimination (Fox 2014), and the detrimental consequences of religious restrictions and discrimination on human rights protection (Fox 2008) and ethnic conflicts (Fox 2000), it is imperative to examine whether HROs can improve the protection of religious freedom. As religion plays an increasing role in international relations in theory and practice (Fox 2001; Sandal and Fox 2013), this study will enrich the literature in IR by providing theoretical advancement and empirical findings in the intersection between religion and human rights study.

Another shortcoming in the current literature is the lack of the examination of the two dimensions of human rights. Most studies focus on the protection of individual rights, and even the definition of human rights is restricted to individuals (Donnelly 2013). However, human rights should include the rights for both individuals and groups. A new study indicates that institutional and individual religious restrictions towards minorities can be predicted by different variables (Finke et al. 2017). The individual dimension is private; the organizational dimension of human rights is social and collective. For some kinds of human rights, such as religious rights and workers' rights, these two dimensions are integral parts. The individual practice is limited without the acknowledgment and protection of the group dimension of the freedom. For example, religious individuals do not have full freedom of religion when they are not allowed to have a church, just as workers do not have labor rights if they are not allowed to form a union. This study contribution to scholarship by taking account of both dimensions of religious rights and examining the effects of HROs on the protection of religious freedom.

#### **3. Theory and Hypothesis**

HROs can influence the protection of religious freedom through three channels. First, the local HROs can gather documentation (Brysk 1993) about the rights violations by the government. HROs operate on a local level in the field; therefore, they can collect the firsthand information on the human rights abuse including religious restrictions. Second, HROs can also mobilize human rights movements for the better treatment of the citizens by governments. HROs also know international human rights standards and states' legal international commitments, thus, they can mobilize and provide resources to the religious community to fight for their rights. Third, HROs can provide assistance to human rights groups (Brysk 1993) to overcome the political barriers they face when they fight for their rights on the local level. Religious rights should conform to a similar mechanism.

Therefore, I hypothesize:

**Hypothesize 1 (H1).** *The domestic presence of HROs decreases the restrictions of aggregate religious rights*.

Would HROs influence how governments treat religious institutions and individuals? Religious freedom inherently includes institutional and individual rights (Scolnicov 2010), and it would not be appropriate to assume that HROs have the same effect on the

protection of these two dimensions of rights. For the domestic presence of HROs, different mechanisms might operate for private individuals versus more public institutions.

Religious individual rights and group rights are different in their visibility. Religious individual rights have an emphasis on the expression of one's belief, while the institutional rights concern group identity and functioning (Scolnicov 2010). Rights violation for institutions are overt, for individuals more covert. Therefore, HROs work more directly to pressure governments to improve institutional human rights and indirectly to improve individual human rights.

Religious institutions have a social, communitarian dimension (Scolnicov 2010). Just as Finke's definition of religious groups as "collectives that promote religious belief, symbols, and practices" (Finke 2013, p. 299). Therefore, religious groups enjoy a higher visibility in comparison to individuals, and restrictions of religious groups are correspondingly more visible. For example, the favoritism of the Orthodox church and restrictions of other religious institutions by the Russian governmen<sup>t</sup> are highly visible and well known. Religious organizations have the natural advantage such as resources and skills to mobilize themselves for political actions (Fox 2018). The restrictions of religious organizations are usually conducted overtly based on the claims of disruptions of social orders, subversion of state authority, etc. Human rights social movements led by religious actors can cause political disruptions in society and potentially lead the governments to tighten their control of religious groups and even violently crack down. HROs can mediate between the governments and religious groups, and work with religious community to avoid the repercussions from the political disruption. HROs can decrease the severity of restrictions on religious groups by providing assistance to lessen the political repercussions from social movements.

Thus, I hypothesize that:

#### **Hypothesize 2 (H2).** *The domestic presence of HROs decreases the restrictions of religious institutions*.

In contrast, religious individuals are relatively less visible and restrictions on religious practice of individuals are more covert. Information on the restrictions and persecution of religious individuals can be hidden intentionally from the public and media by authoritarian regimes to avoid criticism. On the other hand, violation of religious rights of individuals is often conducted by the local officials and police, therefore, there is a principal agen<sup>t</sup> problem due to the state capacity (Englehart 2009). States are restricted by their capacity to monitor abuses on an individual level and evidence of violations is harder to collect on a local level. The local HROs can gather information on rights violations and then transmit overseas through transnational advocacy networks. When HROs launch naming and shaming campaigns targeting the states on religious restrictions of individuals, HROs provide new information to the public and international audience. Therefore, the naming and shaming campaigns would pressure states to improve rights protection due to their vulnerability to moral pressure on their reputations. States can be pressured from above by targeting campaigns of HROs and other third parties. HROs have extensive transnational advocacy networks and can engage in naming and shaming campaigns to induce material and reputational costs on rights violating states. In response, rights violating states might deny such practices at first, but will eventually improve their rights protection under pressure with reputational concerns (Risse et al. 1999).

HROs can also improve the condition of human rights on an individual level in a bottom-up process. The improvement of rights protection is a product of the combined efforts from the states, citizens, and other domestic and international groups. HROs can provide information to individuals and mobilize them to initiate legal claims in domestic legal systems (Simmons 2009). HROs can also initiate information campaigns to educate the domestic population on human rights issues (Davis et al. 2012). The embeddedness of a country in global civil society and international flows of human resources are important predictors for citizens' participation in human rights campaign. If citizens have a membership in HROs, they are more likely to participate in the global human rights movements (Tsutsui 2006).

**Hypothesize 3 (H3).** *The domestic presence of HROs decreases the restrictions of religious individuals*.

#### **4. Data and Methods**

By aggregating data needed for all the variables in this research, I have created a panel dataset. After performing list-wise deletion, the data includes 118 entities (countries) across 14 years from 1990 to 2003. Due to the limitation of the data on HROs (the international human rights organization) (Smith and Wiest 2005), this study is limited to the above years.

The dependent variables are aggregate religious restrictions, institutional religious restrictions, and individual religious restrictions. The aggregate religious restrictions are the sum of all religious restriction indicators from the index on *Regulation of and Restrictions on the Majority Religion and All Religions* in Religion and State Dataset Round 3 (RAS 3) dataset (The Association of Religion Data Archives). The RAS3 dataset uses detailed indicators to measure *Regulation of and Restrictions on the Majority Religion and All Religions* and includes the measures for religious restrictions towards institutions and clergy, and individuals. Each indicator in the index ranges from 0 (no restrictions) to 3 (large scales of restrictions). The descriptive statistics are in Table 1.

The other two dependent variables—institutional religious restrictions and individual religious restrictions—are also constructed from the above index with exploratory factor analysis. More detailed explanations of the two variables and the factor analysis are to follow. The descriptive statistics are in Table 1.

The main independent variables are the measures for the presence of HROs. The presence of HROs is operationalized as the number of HROs within each country. This variable is measured by the number of INGOs listed in the *Yearbook of International Organizations* with a human rights focus with members or volunteers in a specific country in a specific year (Smith and Wiest 2005).

I also control the following usual suspects influencing human rights levels. Economic development is expected to be positively related to states' respect for human rights according to past research (Mitchell and McCormick 1988; Poe and Tate 1994; Poe et al. 1999; Keith et al. 2009). Specifically, stronger economies have fewer governmen<sup>t</sup> religious restrictions (Grim and Finke 2010). However, the effects of economic growth are mixed. Economic growth can expand the resource base and reduce the economic and social stress, so the governments are less likely to use repression. On the other hand, rapid economic growth also can increase instability which induce the states to resort to coercion (Poe and Tate 1994). In this study, economic development is measured by the GDP and economic growth is measured by percentage growth in GDP.

Population size is positively related to repression according to studies (Poe and Tate 1994; Poe et al. 1999; Keith et al. 2009; Richards et al. 2001). Population size is also positively related to religious restrictions (Finke et al. 2017). To operationalize the effects of population on the abuse of human rights through repression, I will use the total national population to measure the population size. The data for the population size for the 118 countries are from the World Bank development indicators.

The type of political regime also matters for religious freedom. Most of the research in the areas of international human rights law also find that democracy is positively correlated with better practice in human rights law compliance with different approaches (Poe and Tate 1994; Poe et al. 1999; Keith et al. 2009; Richards et al. 2001; Hathaway 2002; Dai 2005). Non-democratic countries repress religion more than others (Sarkissian 2015; Finke and Martin 2014; Finke 2013; Grim and Finke 2010). Democracies have political competition based on the multi-party system. Thus, repression of religions will face political retribution. In this study the democracy variable is measured by the Polity IV score created by Center

for Systemic Peace. It ranges from −10 to +10 measuring the autocratic political system to democratic political system.

Regime duration matters for religious freedom too. Older democracies have fewer governmen<sup>t</sup> restrictions on religious freedoms (Grim and Finke 2010), thus regime duration matters for religious restrictions. Newer regimes and well-established regimes may also have different tendencies to respect human rights (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui 2005; Hathaway 2002). This variable is measured by the regime durability in Polity IV data.

Scholars have also found that internal and external wars in countries are often related to the regimes' lower respect for human rights (Poe and Tate 1994; Poe et al. 1999; Rasler 1986). The data for internal and external wars are from the Major Episodes of Political Violence and Conflict Regions, 1946–2015, by the Center for Systemic Peace. International wars are measured by the number of international wars the states have participated in; the internal wars are measured by the amount of the civil war and ethic war the states experienced.

The states' integration into international social society is also an important factor. Global economic interdependence is also important factor influencing human rights protection in countries (Hathaway 2002; Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui 2005). This variable is measured by the percentage of gross domestic product made up by trade, and the source of the data is from World Development Indicators.

Another factor could affect the protection of religious freedom is judiciary independence. An independent judiciary advances religious freedoms (Finke and Martin 2014). If a state with an independent judiciary violates human rights norms, a citizen can bring a claim against it in court. However, citizens in states without independent judiciary would have no resources with which to launch an attack against the state. I adopt the measure provided by CIRI Human Rights Data Project. The levels of judicial independence across countries are coded as 0 for "not independent", 1 for "partially independent" and 2 for "generally independent".

Studies find that percentage of the Muslims in a country is positively related to religious restrictions (Finke and Martin 2014), while the percentage of Christians is negatively related to religious restrictions (Grim and Finke 2010). I included two variables measuring percentages of Muslims and Christians, which are provided in World Religion Data by the Correlates of War Project.

Religious pluralism is an important factor influencing the degree of religious freedom in a society. Rulers gran<sup>t</sup> religious liberties to the public based on their strategic considerations on their political and economic interests. The needs for political figures to balance competing interests in a religiously plural context are important driving forces for the religious liberty (Gill 2007). Religious pluralism is conducive to religious freedom, because it provides a marketplace for different religions to compete with each other for resources and motivate them to grow (Stark and Finke 2000; Gill 2007). Thus, religious liberty is more likely to be in place where there is religious diversity. I created a measure of religious homogeneity using the data of percentages of different religious groups by World Religion Data through the method of Herfindahl–Hirschman Index measure. It is a continuous measure ranging from 0 to 1.

Having an official state religion is often related to religious repression (Finke 2013). When states establish one religion, other religions are in a disadvantaged place in a competition. Other religions in the society could threaten the legitimacy of its institutions and the favored treatment it receives from the state. To prevent unwanted competition and secure more authority and resources, the dominant religion often seeks an alliance with the state. On the other hand, states often build their legitimacy off the established religion. Keeping the status of dominant religion is also in states' interest to their rule. To secure and maintain this alliance, the state often restricts all other religions and discriminates against minority religions to keep the advantaged place the dominant religion (s) holds. I include a measure for religious establishment—Official Religion—which is from Religion and State Dataset Round 3 (RAS 3) dataset (The Association of Religion Data Archives). I recoded

this variable into a dummy variable; 1 means the state has established religions, while 0 means the state has no official religions. variables

 are in Table 1 below.


 of**Table 1.** Descriptive Statistics.

 the above

## **5. Statistical Modeling**

The basic data statistics

Due to the considerable heterogeneity among the countries examined in this study as panel data, the pooled OLS models may not be proper methods to estimate the effects of the independent variable on religious restrictions. This study uses fixed effect models to examine the "within" effect of the international human rights organizations, taking account of both the heterogeneity across countries and years. The estimates of this study should reveal whether states change behavior in religious freedom after they ratify the treaty within the time frame in this study. I will test the following models:

#### **Fixed Effect Models:** *Religous Restrictions* = (*<sup>α</sup>i* <sup>+</sup>*θt*) + *β*1*HROs* + *Zit* + *εit*

In this model, *αi* is the individual effect and *θt* is the time effect. *αi* captures the effects that are specific to some countries but constant over time, whereas *θt* captures effects that are specific to some time period but constant over countries. Controlling for time effect is necessary. First, important international events such as the end of Cold War and the deepening of globalization happened during 1990–2008. Additionally, there is an increasing trend in the past decades that human rights data are inflated due to the higher of accountability and better data collection methods (Fariss 2017). Taking account of fixed effect of years helps alleviate this problem. *εit* is the error term in this model. *Zit* is a matrix of control variables including political regime, judiciary independence, population, GDP size, GDP growth rate, the proportion of trade in GDP, internal war and external war, the regime duration, percentage of Christians and Muslims, religious homogeneity and establishment of religion.
