ABSTRACT
Physical integrity rights, referred to as personal integrity rights, are a subset of human rights concerning the inviolability of the human body as enshrined in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Physical integrity rights are violated more frequently or severely in poor countries. Economically under-developed or poor countries are argued to be more repressive because economic scarcity fosters substantial social and political tension. By influencing the need and arguably the capacity to repress, violent conflict has been singled out as a confounding factor that is positively related to the use of repression, regardless of regime type. Treating physical integrity rights as the outcome of elite-driven instrumental behavior has been a remarkably fruitful approach to study the causes of violations. The predominant approach in the literature is to view physical integrity violations as instrumentally rational behavior employed by political elites to achieve some political goal.
