Do international human rights treaties constrain governments from repressing their populations? Government authorities routinely ignore their international obligations, and countries with poor human rights records join international treaties and yet continue to violate rights. Contentious Compliance presents a new theory of treaty effects founded on the idea that governments repress as part of a domestic conflict with potential or actual dissidents. By introducing dissent actions like peaceful protests, strikes, boycotts, or direct violent attacks on government, Contentious Complianceimproves understanding of when states will violate rights-and when international laws will work to protect people. Formal theory and extensive data analyses show that when political leaders have the highest incentives to repress-namely when political leaders receive large benefits from retaining power and domestic courts are relatively poor at constraining the executive-human rights treaties alter the structure of the strategic conflict between political authorities and potential dissidents, significantly decreasing government repression and increasing the likelihood of mobilized dissent actions.