The architecture of the inter-American human rights system: institutional aspects of compliance with rights to physical integrity

• Grant number: 16/24699-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: July 03, 2017
• End date: September 30, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Cristiane de Andrade Lucena Carneiro
• Grantee: Cristiane de Andrade Lucena Carneiro
• Host Investigator: William Burke-White
• Host Institution: Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Pennsylvania, United States

Abstract

The present research project analyzes three key elements of the Inter-American Human Rights System s institutional architecture in order to investigate how each element influences the level of compliance with oblibations entered by states. These elements are: 1) the level of institutional complexity 2) the design of the regime and 3) political regime, or certain characteristics of the domestic political system within member states. The project relies on the seminal contribution of Alter and Meunier (2009), which triggered attention over the impact of institutional complexity in the realm of international regimes. The authors advance a definition of institutional complexity which emphasizes parallelism, overlap, and nesting amongst the institutional arrangements that make up a given regime. Three hypotheses guide the investigation, which entails the construction of a database with information on decisions and judgements by the Inter-American Human Rights Court. Other independent variables are also collected and subsequently mobilized to analyze the hypotheses advanced in the study. (AU)