Does the Inter-American Court of Human Rights affect the development of human rights norms in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala?

Abstract

Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have struggled to adopt measures of accountability and support for human rights norms since the end of the civil conflicts in the region. Many victims and activists have taken their cases to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to gain reparations and accountability. How effective is the Inter-American Court of Human Rights at advancing human rights norms related to the cases it examines? I examine this question by developing the ‘domestic norm cycle’ theory, which extends Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) norm cycle theory. This theory captures how the ‘internalization’ of a norm takes place by examining political institutions. I argue that we can observe various stages of the ‘domestic norms cycle’ to examine how close or far the state is to fully adopting the norm. Although this article examines the levels of compliance with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, this theory can be applied to examine how external factors influence the development of human rights norms. This study has significant implications for how we observe support for human rights practices.