Individual Mobilization by Victims of Human Rights Abuse: Who Files Petitions in the United Nations?

Abstract Who files petitions against repressive regimes in the United Nations? Victims of human rights abuse face high personal costs of participation, including retaliation from the government against whom they are filing a complaint. There is also a significant information barrier. Despite these costs, several hundred petitions (or complaints) have been filed against repressive governments in just one United Nations treaty body. I frame filing international petitions as a form of antiregime mobilization; if mistreated, political individuals and organizations file petitions as a part of their broader mobilization efforts to improve human rights. This article introduces individual-level data of individuals who file complaints in the United Nations. I find there are two main categories of petitioners: (1) individuals with prior political involvement and (2) individuals represented by civil society organizations. This dataset includes identities of individuals, involvement of legal representation, specific rights under contestation, and other identifying individual characteristics. These data on individuals who overcome high costs help improve our understanding of broader processes of mobilization, both domestic and international.