The Domestic Adoption of International Human Rights Law

327 Pages·2017·2.39 MB·English

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Theses and Dissertations
2015
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Rebecca Ann Reid
University of South Carolina
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Reid, R. A.(2015). The Domestic Adoption of International Human Rights Law: the Roles of Regional and
National High Courts in Latin America. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3602
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THE DOMESTIC ADOPTION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW: THE
ROLES OF REGIONAL AND NATIONAL HIGH COURTS IN LATIN AMERICA

by

Rebecca Ann Reid

Bachelors of Arts
Wofford College, 2008

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in

Political Science

College of Arts and Sciences

University of South Carolina

2015

Accepted by:

Kirk A. Randazzo, Major Professor

Donald Songer, Committee Member

Lee D. Walker, Committee Member

Amanda Licht, Committee Member

Erik Herron, Committee Member

Lacy Ford, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies
© Copyright by Rebecca Ann Reid, 2015
All Rights Reserved.
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DEDICATION
To my parents who have always been incredibly supportive and inspiring.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my committee and my colleagues who have challenged,
mentored, and supported me.

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ABSTRACT
This dissertation addresses the question: under what conditions do regional and national
high courts matter in the promotion and domestic incorporation of international human rights
law? In order to address this question, I argue that domestic high courts can proactively adopt
international human rights laws through their interpretation of the law and resulting case
decisions. Regional courts promote international law, particularly through their requirement of
domestic legal reforms in their judgments. I examine the extent of state compliance with these
requirements, where compliance consists of these changes in the domestic legal system thereby
institutionalizing international laws and transforming them into enforceable law. These arguments
are evaluated through original data consisting of the universe of compliance records of Latin
America to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights from 2001-2015 and Latin American high
court cases. I find that domestic high courts successfully and unilaterally institutionalize
international human rights laws and a much higher compliance rate with even such stringent
regional court requirements as domestic legal reform. The influence of regional and national high
courts is much higher then traditional scholarship credits.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION ....................................................................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ iv
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................v
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................. vii
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………… ……. 1
CHAPTER 2: THE ROLE OF COURTS IN THE ADOPTION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW ................22
2.1 LATIN AMERICAN NATIONAL HIGH COURTS AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN
RIGHTS LAW INCORPORATION ...................................................................................30

2.2 INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS (IACHR) AND HUMAN RIGHTS
LAW INCORPORATION ................................................................................................51

CHAPTER 3: THE DOMESTIC LEGAL STRUGGLE: THE ROLE OF HIGH COURTS ....................72

3.1 WHEN SHOULD DOMESTIC COURTS MATTER? ....................................................74
3.2 HOW DO DOMESTIC COURTS MATTER? ..............................................................77
3.3 WHY WOULD COURTS CHOOSE TO INCORPORATION INTERNATIONAL LAW? ...100
3.4 GAME THEORETIC MODEL OF DOMESTIC COURT PROMOTION ...........................139
3.5 CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................151
CHAPTER 4: REGIONAL COURTS AND THE ADOPTION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
LAWS ................................................................................................................................153

4.1 PREDICTING IACHR LEGAL REFORM REPARATION ISSUANCE ..........................190
4.2 PREDICTORS OF STATE COMPLIANCE TO IACHR ..............................................206
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4.3 CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................240
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS: COURTS, COMPLEMENTARITY, AND COMPETITION ...............246

REFERENCES .....................................................................................................................259
APPENDIX A –PREVIOUS U.N. DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD RECIPIENTS ……...280
APPENDIX B – CHAPTER 3 FULL MODELS .........................................................................286
APPENDIX C – MEXICAN SUPREME COURT .......................................................................292
APPENDIX D – CHAPTER 4 ALTERNATIVE MODELS ..........................................................296
APPENDIX E – RATIFIED INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS INCLUDED IN RIGHTS
ENTRENCHMENT ...............................................................................................................316

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: Panel-Corrected Standard Error Model of PIR and Empowerment Rights in
Latin America, 1981-2010 ................................................................................................90

Table 3.2: Fixed Effects: PIR and Empowerment Rights in Latin America, 1981-2010 ..91
Table 3.3: Empowerment Rights in Latin America, 1981-2010…………………………97
Table 3.4: Discretionary Docket: Action of Unconstitutionality Cases .........................113
Table 3.5: Discretionary Docket: Facultad de Atracción Cases .....................................114
Table 3.6: Total Discretionary Docket …………………………………………………114
Table 3.7: Mexico’s Supreme Court: Action of Unconstitutional Cases by Litigant…..116
Table 3.8: Annual Trends in Case Type and Case Load ..................................................117
Table 3.9: Number of Cases Considered by Sala IV per Year...………………………..119
Table 3.10: Colombian Constitutional Court Docket .....................................................120
Table 4.1: Usage and Activity of Inter-American Court of Human Rights .……..…….166
Table 4.2: Frequency of State as Litigant to IACHR Case..……………….…….……..176
Table 4.3: Summary of Compliance by Country…...…………………………………..189
Table 4.4: Categorization of Cases by Type of Rights ...................................................194
Table 4.5: Logit Models Predicting Requirement of Legal Reform……………………196
Table 4.6: Logit Predicting Requirement of Legal Reform…………………………….205
Table 4.7: Case-Level Logit Models Predicting Compliance to IACHR ......………….214
Table 4.8: State-level Logit Models Predicting Compliance .………………………….229
Table 4.9: State-level Poisson Models Predicting Compliance Counts .……………….238
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1: Latent Respect for Physical Integrity Rights ..................................................81

Figure 3.2: Ordinal Respect for Empowerment Rights ....................................................82

Figure 3.3: Judicial Independence by Country .................................................................84
Figure 3.4: Judicial Independence on Human Rights .......................................................89
Figure 3.5: Influence of Judicial Independence on Rights ...............................................94
Figure 3.6: Rights Trends by Country ..............................................................................96
Figure 3.7: Influence of Judicial Independence on Empowerment Rights………………98
Figure 3.8: Pro-individual in Civil Liberties and Criminal Cases in Common Law
Countries ……………………………………………………………………………….136

Figure 3.9: Yearly Change in Pro-individual Civil Liberties Decisions…………….….137

Figure 3.10: Yearly Change in Pro-individual Criminal Decisions ................................138
Figure 3.11: Game theoretic model for policy-setting cases with substantive outcome .144
Figure 3.12: Game theoretic model for policy-setting cases ..........................................145
Figure 4.1: Usage and Activity of Inter-American Court of Human Rights ..................167
Figure 4.2: Cases Presented to IACHR by Commission ................................................167
Figure 4.3: Petition Activity in the Inter-American Commission ...................................168
Figure 4.4: Number of Cases Requiring Legal Reform by Country ...............................176
Figure 4.5: Overall Compliance by Country ...................................................................177
Figure 4.6: Full Compliance by Country ........................................................................178
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