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"The international human rights regime has grown substantially over the past several decades. Yet, international human rights law faces significant enforcement challenges coupled with threats to its legitimacy in many parts of the world. As part of the international human rights regime, the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights allow individuals to file formal complaints with an international legal body, making them uniquely designed to ensure rights-related changes. This book focuses on regional human rights court deterrence, or the extent to which adverse judgments discourage the commission of future human rights abuses by instilling fear of the consequences of continued abuse. The central argument of the book is that regional court deterrence is more likely when the chief executive has the capacity and willingness to respond to adverse judgments from regional courts. Jillienne Haglund argues that the executive has greater capacity to respond to adverse judgments when human rights policy changes are relatively feasible and the state is fiscally flexible. Moreover, the executive has incentives to respond to adverse judgments with human rights policy change when the executive faces pressure from the mass public, economic elites, or political elites. This book draws comparisons across regional courts in Europe and the Americas using quantitative data analysis, supplemented with qualitative evidence from many adverse judgments rendered by the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights, to explain the conditions under which adverse regional court judgments deter future human rights abuses"

This book provides an innovative analysis of the complex issue of judicial convergence and fragmentation in international human rights law, moving the conversation forward from the assessment of the two phenomena and investigating their triggering factors. With a wide geographical focus that include the most up-to-date case-law from the three main regional systems (the African, European and Inter-American) and the UN Human Rights Committee, the book confirms the predominant judicial convergence across international human rights law. On this basis, the book engages with an interdisciplinary investigation into the legal and non-legal factors that could explain both convergence and fragmentation, ranging from the use of judicial dialogue and the notions of necessity and proportionality to the composition of the courts and the role of NGOs. The aim is to provide the tools to understand the dynamics between human rights adjudicatory bodies and possibly foresee future instances of judicial fragmentation.

There is a growing discrepancy between the output of human rights courts which protect the individual and traditional international institutions which protect the interests of states. This volume provides a systematic analysis of the impact of international human rights courts on more traditional international institutions

To what extent should domestic courts apply international law – specifically the international law of human rights? I would like to examine this question with reference to two very different states: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States. For quite distinct reasons, neither of the two has yet fully embraced the idea of direct application in national tribunals of the body of international law that regulates the relationship between human beings and their own governments. As the post-Cold War era unfolds, it is time to ask whether either or both of these erstwhile adversaries might finally be ready for full-fledged implementation of international human rights law in national courts. The Soviet Union is going through such profound political and constitutional change that specific comments run the risk of obsolescence or irrelevancy. In early 1991, when this Essay was in preparation, the breakup of the Union came to seem inevitable, but what will emerge cannot yet be foreseen. Retrogressive developments have cast doubt on the prospects for advancing the rule of law under the current Soviet leadership. Nonetheless, I believe that the issue of domestic application of international human rights law will survive the current tumultuous period and will figure in the disposition of transcendent constitutional issues.

"This book provides an innovative analysis of the complex issue of judicial convergence and fragmentation in international human rights law, moving the conversation forward from the assessment of the two phenomena and investigating their triggering factors. With a wide geographical focus that include the most up-to-date caselaw from the three main regional systems (the African, European and Inter-American) and the UN Human Rights Committee, the book confirms the predominant judicial convergence across international human rights law. On this basis, the book engages with an interdisciplinary investigation into the legal and non-legal factors that could explain both convergence and fragmentation, ranging from the use of judicial dialogue and the notions of necessity and proportionality to the composition of the courts and the role of NGOs. The aim is to provide the tools to understand the dynamics between human rights adjudicatory bodies and possibly foresee future instances of judicial fragmentation"--

Conflicts between environmental protection laws and human rights present delicate trade-offs when concerns for social and ecological justice are increasingly intertwined. This book retraces how the legal ordering of environmental protection evolved over time and progressively merged with human rights concerns, thereby leading to a synergistic framing of their relation. It explores the world-making effects this framing performed by establishing how 'humans' ought to relate to 'nature', and examines the role played by legislators, experts and adjudicators in (re)producing it. While it questions, contextualises and problematises how and why this dominant framing was construed, it also reveals how the conflicts that underpin this relationship - and the victims they affect - mainly remained unseen. The analysis critically evaluates the argumentative tropes and adjudicative strategies used in the environmental case-law of regional courts to understand how these conflicts are judicially mediated, thereby opening space for new modes of politics, legal imagination and representation.

"This book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners interested in the protection of the environment and human rights. It questions the synergistic framing of the relationship between environmental protection and human rights by retrieving the numerous conflicts of norms that also underpin and define this relation"--

Examines the phenomenon of avoidance by the courts of human rights norms defensively invoked by a litigant, in treaties to which the US is a party.

The paper investigates the implementation of the norms of international humanitarian and human rights law in the Russian courts. It may be viewed as a specific feature that these two categories are considered close in part of the Russian doctrine and, as we will see below, in some judicial cases. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993 international law has been granted a specific status and significance in the Russian legal system. According to the Constitution and legislation, Russian courts have had the opportunity to play a special role in the implementation of international humanitarian and human rights law. That being said, judicial practice relating to the implementation and the application of these norms is different from that of other international law norms. It is, however, explained, in particular, by the fact, that there are not many cases which either mention directly or use humanitarian law. Often, courts make abstract or general references to international treaties or make decisions only on the basis of the national law, though the considered cases fall directly under the regulation of international humanitarian or human rights law. In conclusion, at present the practice of Russian courts is rather diverse and needs further unification.