Scholars of international courts, tribunals, and other such human rights institutions have long struggled with understanding both how these courts can advance human rights protections within states, while we have also labored to identify evidence of this influence in the changed policies and practices of states. We learn of the international decisions issued by these institutions and observe some of the more visible policies that states advance in response to the judgments of international human rights courts. Yet we typically discern only an incomplete and blurry picture of these state reactions, and rarely get a glimpse into what transpires within states as they determine how to respond to human rights rulings. Courtney Hillebrecht’s book helps answers these questions.
As scholars have focused attention on these increasingly visible and consequential human rights institutions in the last 20–30 years, we have debated the impacts of treaties, membership in international institutions, naming and shaming campaigns by prominent nongovernmental organization and states, and court decisions on regimes and their motivations for (non)compliance. Idealists believe that these courts can and have made a difference in improving human rights, and there is some evidence that these institutions are not as ineffective as critics have alleged. Others, however, argue that the benefits of these courts and tribunals in terms of advancing respect for the rule of law and securing compliance by states with adverse rulings have been oversold.
Domestic Politics and International Human Rights Tribunals makes two important theoretical and theory-building advances in this endeavor by developing a theory of why states comply with regional human rights courts and how (non)compliance unfolds through process tracing of politics and policymaking in states. For all of us seeking to unravel these questions of state compliance, the book represents a timely and welcome addition to this field of scholarship. I highly recommend it to all who want to pry open the black box of state reactions to international courts.
Hillebrecht focuses on the work of two of the most prominent regional human rights courts—The European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights—and state compliance with their rulings. She argues that there are three reasons for state compliance with the rulings of these courts. First, states comply with rulings to signal a commitment to human rights. Domestic and international audiences that either expect compliance as a matter of routine or are looking for increased commitment to human rights norms encourage governments to comply. States are compelled or are simply accustomed to demonstrating respect for human rights. Second, states comply to advance and legitimize human rights reform efforts. In this sense, rulings by international courts can provide helpful leverage for states that may wish to comply but whose reforms require bolstering from these courts in order to convince skeptics and fence-sitters. Third, the author argues that states comply to provide political cover for contentious policies. This is also described, at times, as begrudging compliance.
Regardless of the reasons why states do or do not comply with the rulings of these courts, Hillebrecht argues and finds that domestic coalitions are key. Through both a large-n empirical analysis and a series of case studies in a variety of European and Latin American states, she finds these coalitions at work: “Indeed, it is striking to note that across all of the cases, from Brazil to Russia, Colombia to Italy, domestic compliance coalitions are the key factors for compliance—and for good reasons. No single domestic actor, and not even the strongest executive, can satisfy all of the tribunals’ mandates, legally or logistically. Changing the country’s laws and policies, developing new programs, and striking down existing legislation, require a coalition of domestic actors willing and able to comply with the tribunals’ rulings” (p. 25).
Hillebrecht also introduces a new data set of (non)compliance by states with these courts, The Compliance with Human Rights Tribunals (CHRT) data set. Data are recorded for specific compliance orders and requests delivered by the European Court for Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human rights, and nations are scored on whether they comply or not with these specific rulings. These data will be invaluable tools for scholars who wish to delve ever more deeply into the process of state compliance. There is a large-n analysis of European and Latin American state compliance with rulings handed down by their respective courts that is illuminating, even if it does remind us that much remains obscured behind the impressive list of exogenous factors predicting compliance in the analysis. Hillebrecht finds that the most powerful factor determining state compliance is executive constraint. Those states whose executives face more institutional constraints, as identified in the Polity IV database, are more likely to comply with rulings by these courts. We also learn that states with weaker domestic institutions are more likely to comply with the “low-hanging” fruit and the easier human rights requests they are asked to fulfill, such as requests for reparations to be given to specific individuals, rather than wholesale institutional reform. States with stronger domestic institutions and more executive constraints are more likely to engage in deeper and more systemic human rights reforms. The amount of effort involved in collecting and coding such data is substantial, and the international human rights organizations and transitional justice scholarly communities will all be well served by the work invested in this project.
My overall impression of this book is quite favorable, although I do wish to point out some areas where the arguments could have been strengthened. First, while I do appreciate the tripartite division of state motivations for compliance, I would like to have seen greater attention accorded to the “why states comply” issue than to the “how they comply” issue. For example, while there surely is a process of human rights that can best be characterized as “begrudging,” I wanted to know more about why states begrudgingly complied, in addition to learning about what this type of half-hearted acquiescence looks like. I found the statistical model quite interesting and thorough, although I would have liked to see a clearer connection to the theory of why states comply.
The great strengths of the book lie in the case study depictions of state compliance in Europe and Latin America. In addition to examining state compliance in two different regions of the globe with two different courts, Hillebrecht analyzes all types and levels of compliance. I found these chapters to be quite insightful and fascinating, for we begin to get a peek at what the men and women behind the curtain are doing when challenged by these human rights tribunals. Such case studies can be the source of much insight into the compliance process that can be developed into more generalizable theory and better tests of this complex behavior. Ultimately, Domestic Politics and International Human Rights Tribunals shows us that it is possible to analyze the “micro foundations” of compliance, but that scholars must recognize that compliance truly is a dynamic process conditioned by what actors expect to achieve both at home and at the international level. It is a political process that encompasses bargaining at the national and international level, and must be dissected to understand what level of compliance has been achieved and why. The author does a great service to the discipline by moving us considerably down this difficult path.
