Lock-in? New Democracies and the European Human Rights Regime.

The European human rights regime was founded in 1950 and has strong enforcement mechanisms over its 45 member states while providing over 800 million citizens with the possibility of individual recourse to the European Court of Human Rights. Traditional explanations of the regime’s development focus on reactions to World War II and the role of ideas, but do not account for variation among states’ commitments to human rights protection. In contrast, Andrew Moravcsik’s republican liberal approach argues that governments submit to the European human rights regime to lock-in their successors with a favorable policy and that new democracies are the driving force in strengthening international human rights commitments. This paper undermines the republican liberal approach through empirical study of states’ ratifications pertaining to the acceptance of individual petitions and the Court’s compulsory jurisdiction. Established democracies are substantially more likely to support enforcement within the European Convention of Human Rights than new democracies. Although Central and Eastern European countries have accepted the enforcement mechanisms faster than other new democracies did in the early years of the regime, this is primarily the result of pressure from established members of the Council of Europe and the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]