In recent years, the growing legitimacy and popularity of international human rights tribunals has posed a challenge to skeptics who believe that human rights law is unenforceable and that human rights institutions are nothing but paper tigers. With increasing frequency, states change their domestic human rights policies and practices as a direct result of their interaction with international human rights tribunals. This dissertation research seeks to explain when and why human rights tribunals influence domestic human rights practices. By examining why over 100 states choose to comply or not comply with the recommendations and rulings of the UN Committee on Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights, this project addresses theoretical and empirical lacunae in the international relations and international law literatures. Using interviews with experts at the human rights tribunals, case studies and statistical investigations, this research offers nuanced analyses of the role that compliance with international human rights tribunals can play in signaling a government's commitment to human rights to domestic and international audiences, and, in turn, effecting human rights policy change. Through a multi-method approach this project makes three contributions to the wider academic and policy communities: 1) it begins to identify the scope conditions for the integration of international law and domestic politics in a highly legalized international environment; 2) this project contributes to a growing academic and policy community dedicated to understanding international adjudicative tribunals; and 3) the research project provides important, policy-relevant analyses of the international instruments and domestic institutions that facilitate the protection of human rights. The doctoral research seeks to shed light on compliance with international human rights law and to identify those institutions and strategies that most effectively safeguard human rights.
