NGOs, international courts, and state backlash against human rights accountability: Evidence from NGO mobilization against Tanzania at the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights

Abstract

When nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) encounter state resistance to human rights accountability, how do NGOs use international courts for their human rights advocacy strategies? Considering the overlapping phenomena of shrinking civic space within authoritarian, hybrid, and democratically backsliding regimes, and state backlash against international courts, NGOs navigate two potential levels of state backlash against human rights accountability. Building on the interdisciplinary scholarship on legal mobilization, we develop an integrated framework for explaining how states' two‐level (domestic and international) backlash tactics can both promote and deter NGOs' strategic litigation at international human rights courts (IHRCs). States' backlash tactics can influence NGOs' opportunities, capacities, and goals for their human rights advocacy, and thus affect whether and how they pursue strategic litigation at IHRCs. We elucidate the value of this framework through case studies of NGOs' litigation against Tanzania at the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, an understudied IHRC. Drawing on an original data set, interviews, and documentation, we process‐trace how Tanzania's various backlash tactics influenced whether and how NGOs litigated at the Court. Our framework and analysis show how state backlash against human rights accountability affects NGOs' mobilization at IHRCs and, relatedly, IHRCs' opportunities for influence.

Scholarly Activism for the Rule of Law in the EU

“…We have many examples internationally of illiberal backlash. 45 Backlash goes beyond pushing back against the contents of the judicial decisions in question: it challenges the authority of a court as an international institution is a more principled way. 46 Backlash implies a certain degree of resentment, wanting to reverse a social development.…”

Untitled

“…she asked to then conclude: "Not me." This was obviously an exaggeration as the addressed expert, for protesters a public enemy, 45 would use less placative concepts to refer to far-right networks involved in the Monday demonstrations. One professor with an outstanding expertise on comparative research on the radical right remembers how in the 1990s and early 2000 in Frankfurt (Oder), radical and visually identifiable neo-Nazis were beating up people and sometimes also disturbing academic events.…”

“…44 Regarding contemporary right-wing populists, Müller claims that none of them has come to power without the collaboration of established conservative elites. 45 Neither Netanyahu nor Orbán are exceptions, and conservative intellectuals and academics, including constitutional law scholars supporting illiberal theories, bear responsibility for their counsel.…”

“…We have many examples internationally of illiberal backlash. 45 Backlash goes beyond pushing back against the contents of the judicial decisions in question: it challenges the authority of a court as an international institution is a more principled way. 46 Backlash implies a certain degree of resentment, wanting to reverse a social development.…”

“…Similarly, a doctoral student interviewed by Pearson et al chose to not research incels because "we don't know what the consequences might be." 45 Other participants explained that they did not consider interviews and in-person attendance at protests an option because of the possible risks and lack of institutional support. Conversely, some interviewees engaged in interviews with far-right actors knowing that there was a level of risk, but felt that there were few alternatives available to collect the data they needed.…”