The previous chapter examined the input into a judgment which the interlocutors may give in the (pre-)merits phase, as well as judgments themselves. This chapter concerns the next and last phase in Convention proceedings: the execution phase, which ought to result in the enforcement of a judgment. This chapter assesses the dialogic potential of procedures enabling the interlocutors to influence the course of execution.

The assessment is not limited to formal Committee procedures, but also assesses other procedural opportunities for involvement in the execution phase. Limiting the assessment to Committee procedures would likely lead to the conclusion that only the Committee can become involved in this phase, whilst this is not the case when a broader view is taken. Unlike the (pre-)merits phase, the execution phase lends itself to and calls for a broader view. The (pre-)merits phase concerns the relatively narrow and legal question whether a violation has been committed; the execution phase concerns broader questions that are not necessarily legal, such as, the question which execution measures must be taken, whether the implemented measures suffice and how the states can be stimulated to take execution measures. The questions that arise in the execution phase do not necessarily need to be answered by the Committee, which justifies taking a broader view that looks into procedures which the Committee does not master. For these reasons, procedures mastered by the Court, the Commissioner and the Assembly are also examined.

An introduction (section VI.1) to the execution phase precedes the assessment of this phase in the light of the seven indicators for dialogue in section VI.2. The introduction sets out the content of the Article 46(1) obligation that rests on the states parties to execute the Court's judgments, explains some of the modalities of the Committee's supervision and shortly discusses the twelve procedural steps which section VI.2 analyses.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EXECUTION PHASE AND ITS PROCEDURES

The first paragraph of Article 46 obliges the states parties to ‘undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties’. This obligation is the key to the execution phase, as it means that a judgment is not the end to a legal dispute concerning the question whether a violation has been committed, but the beginning of something equally or perhaps more important: the ending, remedying and prevention of a (future) violation.