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Why do states implement differently the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments?

Why do states implement differently the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments?. Dia Anagnostou (Eliamep) and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (Hertie School of Government) JURISTRAS. Why this study?.

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Why do states implement differently the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments?

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  1. Why do states implement differently the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments? Dia Anagnostou (Eliamep) and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (Hertie School of Government) JURISTRAS

  2. Why this study? • Limited comparative research that systematically explores the conditions and factors that promote state compliance with and implementation of international human rights law.

  3. Our panel of countries • Austria, Italy, Germany, France, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey and the United Kingdom. • These countries were selected because they have generated the largest number of judgments regarding the Convention provisions under focus.Articles 8-11/14 plus minority- and immigrant-related judgments based on other Convention provisions • A population of 748 cases

  4. Previous findings • Treaty ratification (Hathaway) • Economic development • Ethnic divisions in a country • EU accession process • Characteristics of domestic state institutions (i.e. openness/pluralism, centralization, judiciary-executive relations, relations between state and civil society)

  5. Our dependent variables

  6. Hypotheses • Classic management versus enforcement theories • 1. Political will • 2. Implementation capacity

  7. Proxies • 1. Political will: Freedom House Human Rights score, World Bank Rule of law score. • 2. Implementation capacity: World Bank Government Effectiveness Score • 3. Others. Policy area

  8. Finding 1 – Topic • No significant relation between ECHR article and implementation status • Significant relation between policy area and implementation status: • Minority issues take more time to implement controlling for national differences compared to the rest of cases. Why? • Immigrant-related judgments are implemented quicker though – why?

  9. Finding 2 - Procedure • Friendly settlements are a highly effective way to closure – the discussion remains how substantial the implementation really is.

  10. Finding 3 – Human Rights Context • The time taken to implementation is closely associated with the Freedom House score of a country (Political rights and civil liberties index). The better a country is rated by FH, the speedier the implementation. • Explains only 3% of variance and loses significance in more complex variants of the model

  11. Finding 4 – Govt effectiveness • The general implementation capacity of the government explains implementation of ECtHR decisions, controlling for development. • Development, including administrative development, matters.

  12. What does this mean? • All other things equal, implementation of EHCR decisions is in tune with general infrastructural capacity (Chayes and Chayes) • If political will is there, assistance and conditionality should be focused on increasing capacity – including adoption and adjustment of best practices from best achievers

  13. Some policy options • CAPACITY Reform and improve existing executive-centred institutional arrangements responsible for implementation, by bolstering their political independence and legal expertise, and if necessary augmenting their infrastructure and financial resources to facilitate their work • ACCOUNTABILITY Entrust the task to who has the means to carry it out • AWARENESS Promote rights awareness and substantive dialogue among administrative and executive actors who are implicated in implementation of ECtHR judgments

  14. Final policy option – reduce transaction costs •  COORDINATION • Improve policy coordination among designated implementation bodies and other ministries by • a) establishing inter-departmental bodies to coordinate decision-making and actions, • b) mainstreaming across the different ministries considerations of human rights issues arising in ECtHR judgments, • c) institutionalizing within each ministry preventive review of draft legislation for compliance with the latter, and • d) diversifying the role of social and political actors that participate in inter-departmental coordinating bodies ( use volunteer support!)

  15. Thank you! danagnos@eliamep.gr pippidi@sar.org.ro

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