Willingness, capacities and (non)compliance with human rights norms

Abstract

ABSTRACT Poor compliance with human rights norms is the most pressing challenge for scholars and practitioners alike. Drawing from International Relations and Comparative Politics literature, this article outlines a comprehensive and clearly specified theory of compliance, which stresses the centrality of the combined influence two key intervening variables – willing state elites and capable state institutions. Only the combination of a willing state elite and capable state institutions can successfully disrupt complex and entrenched mixtures of factors that cause noncompliance. The article argues that state elites that experience significant and persistent pressure from transnational and domestic human rights advocates – in domestic contexts in which societal actors that favour compliance with human rights are more influential than pro-violation constituencies – will become willing to attempt to change the organisational and structural conditions that generate noncompliance. Willing state elites will only succeed, however, if they have strong state institutions to rely upon.