A massive international legal effort to force countries to protect human rights has failed. It is time to think of new ways of advancing the well being of people around the world.

The international human rights project goes back more than half a century. It began with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a vague and aspirational document, and then incorporated itself in a series of formal treaties. These treaties—about a dozen in total—set out an extraordinary array of rights. Not just classical civil and political rights—rights to freedom of expression and religious worship, to a trial before an independent judge, to protection against unreasonable searches, not to be tortured, and not to be discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity. The treaties also guarantee rights to work, pensions, education, housing, and medical care. They protect the right of children to have access to the media and require accommodation for disabled people. The vast majority of countries have ratified nearly all these treaties, and also set up numerous international courts, commissions, councils, and committees to monitor the compliance of states.

For a long time, optimism that these treaties could improve the lives of people coexisted with cynicism about the willingness of countries to comply with them. In recent years, political scientists have looked at the data. They have found little evidence that countries that ratify human rights treaties improve their human rights performance.

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