LAUSR

Judicial power is often limited by courts’ reliance on other actors to implement their rulings (Carrubba and Gabel 2015; Carrubba, Gabel and Hankla 2008; Hall 2014; Johns 2015; Kapiszewski and Taylor 2013; Rosenberg 2008; Vanberg 2001; Vanberg 2005). To promote compliance, courts therefore employ strategies designed to legitimize their judgments (Hume 2006; Larsson et al. 2017; Lupu and Voeten 2012), raise public awareness (Krehbiel 2016; Staton 2006) and enable pro-compliance constituencies to monitor implementation (Gauri, Staton and Cullell 2015; Staton and Romero forthcoming). However, few scholars have evaluated whether such strategies are effective (Keck and Strother 2016, 3; but see Gauri, Staton and Cullell 2015; Staton and Romero 2019). Thus we know that courts act strategically to promote compliance, but we do not yet know the conditions under which such strategies may succeed. I investigate judges’ ability to promote compliance in the context of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Despite being considered ‘the most effective human rights regime in the world’ (Stone Sweet and Keller 2008), the ECtHR faces significant compliance problems (Hillebrecht 2014a; Hillebrecht 2014b). While the ECtHR traditionally leaves the identification of remedies to respondent states, its compliance problems have motivated the Court to start spelling out necessary remedies in selected judgments (Keller and Marti 2015, 836). Such remedial indications may enable pro-compliance actors to argue more forcefully that specific remedies are necessary and to credibly call out non-compliance (Spriggs 1996, 1127; Staton and Vanberg 2008). To investigate the efficacy of the ECtHR’s new remedial approach, I employ an original dataset of ECtHR judgments and their implementation by respondent states. The dataset includes information concerning both (1) required remedies and other judgment characteristics and (2) the length and outcome of the compliance process. Using these data, I consider how remedial indications affect compliance by respondent states. After conditioning on the factors that influence the ECtHR’s decision to indicate remedies, I find that judgments containing remedial indications are implemented faster than comparable judgments without such indications. Remedial indications are particularly helpful when the institutional context enables pro-compliance actors to hold governments accountable. These findings suggest that courts can succeed in promoting quicker compliance with their judgments.