Does forced migration increase regional human rights commitment? The cases of Malaysia and Thailand in ASEAN

Why do non-democratic governments commit to human rights on a regional level? We argue that the negative externalities of political repression, operationalized as large amounts of transnational refugee flows, affect states’ willingness to commit to human rights. Neighbouring governments commit to human rights to send a signal to their repressive neighbours that repression will no longer be tolerated. We use official UNCHR data, a number of other...