A/HRC/28/59 it is not the painful payment process which triggers such violations, but rather an indicator of a domestic crisis fuelling repression. 27 38. Other studies have assessed whether development assistance or conditionalities attached to such lending have been able to reduce human rights violations, showing disparate results.28 While some scholars find that European Union development assistance has had overall a positive impact on certain human rights, such as the right to freedom of movement, freedom of religion and workers’ rights, other experts have concluded that United States foreign aid, despite human rights conditionalities, is associated with increased physical integrity violations.29 39. Studies have also been carried out on the impact of economic sanctions on different autocratic regimes and their human rights record, finding that the likelihood of repression depends on the type of autocratic system. 30 They have, however, not investigated the impact of net lending on human rights. The Independent Expert is therefore not aware of any empirical research tackling the specific question of the link between foreign debt and regime survival in a systematic way. It is crucial to explore that issue, as the question he is raising has obvious policy and legal implications. 40. In the following paragraphs, the Independent Expert will discuss some preliminary evidence of the relationship between foreign financing and the likelihood that an authoritarian regime transitions to democratic rule. 31 He is using democratic governance as a proxy indicator for a low likelihood that gross human rights violations are being committed. Ideally, reliable data on gross human rights violations would need to be compiled as well, to assess whether there is a direct correlation between lending and gross human rights violations, but there are several methodological challenges. For example, there is no data set available which tracks over a long period and a large number of countries to what extent States have or have not been engaged in gross violations of human rights. While several data sets exist, which measure on a country basis violations of physical integrity, they usually fail to include in a systematic way information produced by the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations. The Independent Expert was therefore hesitant about using them for this report. 27 28 29 30 31 Silja Eriksen and Indra de Soysa “A fate worse than debt? International financial institutions and human rights, 1981–2003”, Journal of Peace Research, vol. 46, No. 4 (July 2009). For a reflection on and discussion of the link between foreign aid and political liberalization in the recipient country, see Abel Escribà Folch and Joseph Wright “Foreign Pressure and the Politics of Autocratic Survival”, ch. 4 (forthcoming from Oxford University Press). See, for example, Allison Sovey Carnegie, Peter M. Aronow, and Nikolay Marinov, “The effects of aid on rights and governance. Evidence from a natural experiment”, unpublished working paper, 6 August 2012, available from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2124994. See also Hyun Ju Lee, “The impact of U.S. foreign aid on human rights conditions in post-Cold War era”, Iowa State University graduate theses and dissertations, available from http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/12068. See, for example, Abel Escribà-Folch, “Authoritarian responses to foreign pressure, spending, repression, and sanctions”, Comparative Political Studies, vol. 45, No. 6 (June 2012) and Christian Davenport “State repression and the tyrannical peace”, Journal of Peace Research, vol. 44, No. 4 (July 2007). It is argued that single party systems, especially those that involve more people and organizations, are less likely to engage in repression than other types of autocratic regimes, such as dictators or military regimes. This section is based on research undertaken by the Independent Expert, together with Abel EscribàFolch. See Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Abel Escribà-Folch, “Rational choice and financial complicity with human rights abuses: policy and legal implications” in Making Sovereign Financing and Human Rights Work, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Jernej Letnar Cernic, eds. (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2014). 13