Compliance in Time: Lessons from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

• In Event: International Law and Second-Order Compliance

Abstract

Many studies analyze compliance with international court rulings by modeling the status of pending legal cases at a given point in time. This “snapshot” approach ignores two important problems. First, states often take a long time to comply. Second, the conditions that facilitate compliance change over time. To address those challenges, we introduce two metrics: the yearly probability of compliance (YPC) and expected time to compliance (ETC), and estimate those metrics using discrete-time models. We illustrate this approach with an analysis of all cases decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights between 1989 and 2019. Combined with cross-validation, a standard machine-learning procedure, this strategy allows us to reconstruct the life cycle of reparation measures ordered by the Court. We show that the yearly probability of compliance peaks within two years after the court issues a ruling. Moreover, the expected time to compliance is close to five years for monetary reparations and measures of satisfaction, and experiences very long delays only for a minority of measures. Overall, the evidence indicates that concerns about compliance with the IACtHR require a more nuanced assessment.

Authors

• Anibal Perez-Linan, University of Notre Dame

• Luis L Schenoni, University College London

• Kelly Elizabeth Morrison, University of Gothenburg