The Legitimacy of International Human Rights Courts: Evidence from Latin America

• In Event: Crisis of the Liberal International Order: Resilience, Adaptation, or Collapse?

Abstract

International human rights courts (IHCs) have been a key building block of the Liberal International Order in many parts of the world, providing a check on the human rights practices of entrenched, democratizing, and even autocratic governments. While we know a great deal about when and why governments join/withdraw from and comply with these institutions’ decisions, we know much less about how the humans they are intended to protect perceive them. This paper argues that perceptions of IHCs depend on how people view domestic courts. For those who perceive domestic courts as ineffective and biased, international courts are a more legitimate alternative to local legal institutions. In contrast, those who perceive domestic courts as effective and fair view international courts as a threat to local jurisprudence and norms. I test this argument via a survey experiment in two Latin American countries subject to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In addition to shedding light on the legitimacy of international human rights courts, this paper provides insight into the conditions under which people are willing to take action to undermine their country’s participation in these institutions.

Author

• Jana von Stein, The Australian National University