Domestic accountability and non-compliance with international law: Evidence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
| Published date | 01 January 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433231200924 |
| Author | Francesca Parente |
| Date | 01 January 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433231200924
Journal of Peace Research
2025, Vol. 62(1) 119 –133
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433231200924
journals.sagepub.com/home/jpr
1225162JPR0010.1177/00223433231200924Journal of Peace ResearchParente
research-article2023
Regular Article
Domestic accountability and non-compliance
with international law: Evidence from
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Francesca Parente
Department of Political Science, Christopher Newport University
Abstract
Domestic public preferences often shape leaders’ decisions to comply with international legal rulings. Human rights
scholars usually assume these preferences favor enforcement and justice. However, just because the public supports
human rights does not mean they universally support remedies ordered by international courts. What happens when
leaders face competing compliance pressures from an international court and domestic public? I examine this
question in the context of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a regional human rights court that operates
primarily in Latin America. I argue that non-compliance may sometimes result from democratic leaders adjusting
compliance behavior according to public opinion, especially when the implicated actor is popular. In particular,
I argue that compliance is a function of proximity to the next presidential election, therefore necessitating greater
responsiveness to the public’s opinions, and the public’s attitudes toward the actor implicated by the ruling. I test my
argument on an original dataset of all Inter-American Court rulings implicating the military. I show that if the public
does not support the military, the probability of compliance increases closer to an election; however, if the public
does support the military, the probability of compliance decreases. My findings suggest the importance of incorpor-
ating the public’s attitudes into existing models of compliance with international law.
Keywords
compliance, human rights, international law, Latin America
Introduction
In 1982, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, ages seven
and three, were captured by soldiers and forcibly
disappeared (IACtHR, 2005). The sisters were just two
of the hundreds of children who disappeared during El
Salvador’s civil war, which lasted from 1980 to 1992. At
the end of the conflict, the Salvadoran National Assem-
bly passed a law granting general amnesty for human
rights abuses committed during the war, which pre-
cluded investigations into the abductions (French,
1993). To date, the Serrano Cruz family does not know
what happened to Ernestina and Erlinda.
Unable to pursue justice domestically, in 1999, the
family filed a petition at the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights, which reached the Inter-American
Court in 2003. In 2005, the Inter-American Court
found El Salvador responsible for several violations of
the American Convention on Human Rights and
ordered El Salvador to undertake several remedies,
including the ‘eliminat[ion of] all the obstacles and
mechanisms de facto and de jure, which prevent compli-
ance with these obligations [to investigate, prosecute,
and punish] in the instant case’ (IACtHR, 2005: para.
218). In other words, to comply with the Court’s judg-
ment, El Salvador would have to repeal its amnesty law.
The longstanding presumption in international rela-
tions literature has been that international human rights
courts are pro-majoritarian institutions: their decisions
promoting human rights are welcomed by and aligned
with the views of the public. But just because the public
supports human rights does not mean they support the
Corresponding author:
francesca.parente@cnu.edu
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