Saving the International Justice Regime

Abstract

While resistance to international courts is not new, what is new, or at least newly conceptualized, is the politics of backlash against these institutions. Saving the International Justice Regime: Beyond Backlash against International Courts is at the forefront of this new conceptualization of backlash politics. It brings together theories, concepts and methods from the fields of international law, international relations, human rights and political science and case studies from around the globe to pose - and answer - three questions related to backlash against international courts: What is backlash and what forms does it take? Why do states and elites engage in backlash against international human rights and criminal courts? What can stakeholders and supporters of international justice do to meet these contemporary challenges?

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

“…Empirically, we provide an unprecedented quantitative and qualitative analysis of the African Court, which is typically excluded from analyses of IHRCs that overwhelmingly focus on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) (e.g., Haddad, 2018;Hillebrecht, 2019Hillebrecht, , 2021Sandholtz et al, 2018). Existing literature on the African Court's cases primarily analyzes its jurisprudence.…”

“…The scholarship on international‐level backlash against IHRCs (Gonzalez‐Ocantos & Sandholtz, 2022; Hillebrecht, 2021; Madsen, 2020; Sandholtz et al, 2018; Stiansen & Voeten, 2020) examines how state backlash tactics constrain international courts' authority and legal opportunity structures (e.g., jurisdiction, accessibility). It focuses on how this international‐level state backlash influences courts, rather than its impact on actors that may use these courts.…”

“…The framework also applies to all IHRCs, regardless of whether NGOs have direct access to the IHRC or access via a Commission that can forward petitions to the IHRC. For the latter, states' potential international‐level backlash against the Commission and/or Court would be considered (Gonzalez‐Ocantos & Sandholtz, 2022; Hillebrecht, 2021, pp. 117–24).…”

“…Ultimately, the framework highlights how state backlash can both promote and deter NGOs' strategic litigation at IHRCs. This framework notably departs from existing two‐level approaches that analyze both domestic and international factors to understand states' international‐level backlash against international courts (e.g., Hillebrecht, 2021; Madsen, 2020), where state backlash is the outcome of interest. Our framework focuses on the potential for backlash at two levels (domestic and international) and its consequences for NGOs, as key human rights defenders and IHRC constituencies.…”

“…408–9), with tactics that go beyond “the rules of the game” (Madsen, 2020, p. 730) and resist international courts as institutions (Madsen et al, 2018, p. 199). State backlash could involve persistent noncooperation and noncompliance with international court decisions (Hillebrecht, 2021, p. 21; Sandholtz et al, 2018, p. 160). States may also use more extreme measures, such as regressively reforming the court, withdrawing from its authority, or shutting it down (Alter et al, 2016a; Sandholtz et al, 2018, p. 159).…”