New democracies support human rights at multilateral fora. During the 1990s, new democracies from around the globe joined forces with old Western democracies, surpassed autocracies as the main regime type at the UN, and changed the multilateral balance in favour of human rights.”

How did you come to choose your research topic?

As a student and professional of human rights, I have always wondered why states drafted and ratified international human rights norms and established international mechanisms to monitor them. Why does the sovereign state decide to limit its own power? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 in response to the atrocities of the Nazi regime and World War II. Decolonisation played an important role in moving forward the international human rights system, starting with norms and mechanisms against racial discrimination. But I wondered if there were other macro factors that explained the evolution of the international human rights system, particularly after the 1970s.

I investigated states foreign policy on human rights and found that democratisation was an important, yet overlooked, factor. Let me exemplify with the case of Chile. The military removed President Allende with a violent coup on 11 September 1973. The military dictatorship under Pinochet was responsible for terrible human rights violations, including executions and torture, which were documented and denounced abroad by civil society organisations, leading to censure by multilateral fora, including the UN General Assembly, where member states adopted annual resolutions criticising Chile. In the 1988 Plebiscite, the Chilean people voted against Pinochet, paving the way for the 1989 elections when Patricio Aylwin, the candidate of the centre-left coalition of la Concertación, was elected President. After democracy was restored in Chile, the Aylwin administration prioritised human rights in its domestic and foreign policy, agreeing to international supervision and supporting strengthening its mechanisms. This was in line with a more general trend across the globe since the beginning of the third wave of democratisation, which started in Portugal in 1974, passed through countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, as well as Eastern Europe after 1989, and even reached Tunisia after the Arab Spring.

Patricio Aylwin Azócar, the first democratic president of Chile after the military junta, addresses the 45th session of the General Assembly in New York on 28 September 1990. Credit: UN Photo.

My research was informed by my professional experience, having worked for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which included engaging with member states at the General Assembly in New York and the Human Rights Council in Geneva, but also working with diverse stakeholders across different countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Can you describe your PhD thesis? 

My main research question aimed to examine whether a state, after a transition to democracy, changed its foreign policy to support human rights at the UN, and to assess the subsequent ramifications of such changes for the international system. I sought to answer this question following a multi-method approach, testing a series of hypotheses.

I undertook discourse analysis, focusing on speeches to the General Debate of the UN General Assembly, when presidents, prime ministers, and ministers for foreign affairs address the global community in September every year. I measured state rhetoric on freedom, human rights, but also sovereignty and security through an eleven-year period and found that new democracies “talk the talk”, abandoning a logic of sovereignty, turning to support human rights, and agreeing to international supervision. Transitions to democracy happen through rupture or by pact, as reflected in democratisation literature, and I found that the evolution of these speeches followed their modes of transition. New democracies arising from transitions by rupture emphasise human rights in their first speeches, while new democracies from pacted transitions gradually increase their support to human rights. Considering democratisation as a treatment in a scientific experiment, I also analysed the rhetoric of autocracies and old democracies, as control and contrast cases that lacked the treatment. I found that autocracies had preference for sovereignty, and old democracies had preference for human rights. Finally, I investigated whether human rights reputation matters to states and found that autocracies will defend their sovereignty when confronted by multilateral criticism, calling for non-interference in their domestic affairs. After a democratic transition, the state’s human rights reputation also matters to new democracies, which will go to great lengths to recover it.

Besides state rhetoric, I also explored diplomatic practice, analysing the 20 efforts to create the post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, between 1965 and 1993, as a paradigmatic case. I undertook statistical models, based on standard cross-national ratings on democracy (Varieties of Democracy and Polity), and found that democracies had consistently supported the creation of the post of High Commissioner, while autocracies had generally opposed it. I also found that states changed their position on this specific matter, towards support after democratisation or towards opposition after an authoritarian shift. At macrolevel, I identified a global effect of these new democracies from around the world: after joining forces with old Western democracies, they surpassed autocracies during the 1990s as the main regime type at the UN. This important structural shift contributed to the creation of international human rights mechanisms, such as the UN High Commissioner, complaints procedures by human rights treaty bodies, and other mechanisms of international supervision, such as the International Criminal Court.

I also carried out two case studies, regarding Argentina and Poland, after their transitions to democracy in 1983 and 1989, respectively. I interviewed government officials, including former ministers and vice-ministers for foreign affairs, ambassadors, diplomats and experts, to identify the causal mechanisms that explain the changes in foreign policy after democratisation. I found that political leaders of these new democracies drove these changes with the support of key advisors, in connection to other context-specific factors.

What could be the implications of your thesis for the current period, marked by various challenges to democracy?

I believe my thesis has implications for both the scholar and practitioner of human rights. At country level, my thesis identifies elements to assess an autocracy’s relationship with the international human rights system and, most importantly, provides ideas for a strategy for a new democracy’s foreign policy on human rights. At global level, my thesis suggests a framework to monitor the balance between democracies and autocracies at multilateral fora to assess how states perceive the international supervision of human rights. Some scholars suggest the world has entered a third wave of autocratisation or at least democratic recession, and my framework provides elements to evaluate whether the global human rights system is at risk.

What are you doing now?

I decided to take time off from my UN career, to work on transforming my thesis into a manuscript, to continue my research on human rights and democracy, and engage in other academic projects.

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Leonardo S. C. Castilho defended his PhD thesis in International Relations/Political Science in January 2023. Professor Thomas Biersteker presided over the committee, which included Emeritus Professor David Sylvan, Thesis Director, and Professor Kathryn Sikkink, Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
The thesis is embargoed until April 2026. For access, please contact Leonardo S. C. Castilho at leonardo.castilho@graduateinstitute.ch.

Leonardo S. C. Castilho is currently on leave from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The views expressed in this interview are his and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.

Citation of the PhD thesis:
Castilho, Leonardo S. C. “Spreading the Word Abroad about Democracy at Home: New Democracies and Their Support of Human Rights” PhD thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2023.

Interview by Nathalie Tanner, Research Office.
Banner image:  (Left) Foto antiga | old photo | Portugal 1970s: Appearance of the streets of Lisbon during the Revolution, 25 April 1974, by Hemeroteca Digital | Portugal | Old magazines & newspapers, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED. (Right) UN General Assembly hall. Patrick Gruban, cropped and downsampled by Pine, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.