Regional Courts, Domestic Politics, and the Struggle for Human Rights
Publisher: University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations
Published: 2020
Language: eng
Number of pages: 341
ISBN-13: 9781108489300
Subjects: Law
Description: "The international human rights regime has grown substantially over the past several decades. Yet, international human rights law faces significant enforcement challenges coupled with threats to its legitimacy in many parts of the world. As part of the international human rights regime, the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights allow individuals to file formal complaints with an international legal body, making them uniquely designed to ensure rights-related changes. This book focuses on regional human rights court deterrence, or the extent to which adverse judgments discourage the commission of future human rights abuses by instilling fear of the consequences of continued abuse. The central argument of the book is that regional court deterrence is more likely when the chief executive has the capacity and willingness to respond to adverse judgments from regional courts. Jillienne Haglund argues that the executive has greater capacity to respond to adverse judgments when human rights policy changes are relatively feasible and the state is fiscally flexible. Moreover, the executive has incentives to respond to adverse judgments with human rights policy change when the executive faces pressure from the mass public, economic elites, or political elites. This book draws comparisons across regional courts in Europe and the Americas using quantitative data analysis, supplemented with qualitative evidence from many adverse judgments rendered by the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights, to explain the conditions under which adverse regional court judgments deter future human rights abuses"--