Honors College Theses

Publication Date

5-18-2020

Major

Political Science (B.A.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Faculty Mentor

Dr. Maureen Stobb

Abstract

Are states with a powerful military force less likely to comply with European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) judgements and rulings? The main foundation of the paper is built upon Hillebrecht’s definition of compliance and why a particular state complies with the rulings of the ECtHR and IACtHR. Domestic institutions are the driving force behind a state’s willingness to comply because of the significant lack of enforcing power behind these international institutions. The goal of the paper is to expand upon what Hillebrecht started by looking past the basic domestic institutions like executive branch power, an independent judiciary, and a prosperous civil society and, instead, look at the military power of states. By focusing on the military might of states, I argue that this coincides with the Realist theory approach to International Relations (IR) where states are in a constant power struggle in international relations. I also draw on the rational functionalist approach to IR. I utilize both Hillebrecht’s Compliance with Human Rights Tribunals (CHRT) dataset and the National Material Capabilities v5.0 (NMC) dataset to gather state compliance under the two tribunals as well as a strong definition for what a powerful military is. The implications of this study could be the expansion of the IR literature as a whole by adding a completely different approach to studying noncompliance and the power of states while also providing possible policy implications for noncompliance.

Thesis Summary

Are states with a powerful military force less likely to comply with European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) judgements and rulings? The main foundation of the paper is built upon Hillebrecht’s definition of compliance and why a particular state complies with the rulings of the ECtHR and IACtHR. The goal of the paper is to expand upon what Hillebrecht started by looking past the basic domestic institutions like executive branch power, an independent judiciary, and a prosperous civil society and, instead, look at the military power of states. By focusing on the military might of states, I argue that this coincides with the Realist theory approach to International Relations (IR) where states are in a constant power struggle in international relations.

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