Recent scholarship on the international community's role in prosecution of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity has focused on the international criminal courts created since the close of the Cold War. But there is an alternative international mechanism of accountability that also dates from the Cold War's end, also takes shape through the intervention of an international court, and also deserves study: the jurisdiction exercised by the regional human rights systems for ordering and monitoring national prosecutions of international crimes. The regional rights courts have embarked on a quasi-criminal practice that seeks to achieve the same outcomes as the international criminal tribunals: punishment and deterrence, restorative justice, processes of societal reconciliation, and justice system reform. Further, this form of jurisdiction has unique features: it promotes prosecutions that are local and paid for by the state (rather than the international community); it takes place at the local level, in the midst of the communities most harmed by the crimes; and its process is responsive to victims' needs. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in particular has made national prosecution of gross state-sponsored crimes a center-piece of its regional agenda.
The proposed project examines whether and under what circumstances the Inter-American Court's quasi-criminal jurisdiction results in punishment, processes of societal reconciliation, and national justice system reform. Employing a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, including fieldwork in Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica, the project will assess the efficacy of the Inter-American Court's interventions. The project will contribute to knowledge about the conditions under which international courts orders have a local impact, and the conditions under which states choose to prosecute international crimes.
