Do Human Rights Violations Cause Internal Conflict?
Carleton University // Norman Paterson School of International Affairs This article outlines a human rights framework for analyzing violent internal conflict, by “translating” social-scientific findings about conflict risk factors into human rights language. Discrimination and violations of social and economic rights appear to function as underlying causes, creating the deep grievances and group identities that may, under some circumstances, motivate collective violence. Violations of civil and political rights, by contrast, are more clearly identifiable as direct triggers. Abuse of personal integrity is associated with conflict escalation, with intermediately repressive regimes most at risk. Denial of political participation rights is associated with internal conflict insofar that full democracies experience less conflict, but democratization itself is dangerous, because regime transition is also a major risk factor.
