Is The Law a Mere Parchment Barrier to Human Rights Abuse?

The “mere parchment barriers” created by constitutional provisions may lead to decreases in the extent to which nations abuse the human right not to be imprisoned, tortured, killed, or made to disappear arbitrarily or because of your political views. A global pooled cross-national time-series analysis for a 21-year period shows that adopting selected constitutional provisions protecting individual rights and freedoms, promoting judicial independence, and guarding against states of emergency—and keeping the provisions in place for 10 years—has the potential to reduce a nation's level of state terror substantially, from one in which political imprisonment affects large numbers of the politically active population and political murders are common, to one where the rule of law is secure, for example. We report significant caveats about and limitations of the research. Nevertheless, we conclude that, since it may be easier to change constitutions than to build effective democracy, to create massive amounts of new wealth, or to avoid or defuse deeply ingrained conflicts, these findings have possible policy and scientific importance.