In Chapter 6, I argue that regional human rights courts are more likely to deter future human rights abuses when the executive is willing to adopt, administer, monitor, and enforce human rights policy as a result of elite pressure. I argue that there are two types of elites important for generating executive willingness: economic elites and political elites. With respect to economic elites, I show that the executive is more willing to adopt, administer, monitor, and enforce human rights policy following an adverse judgment when the state is vulnerable to a loss of economic benefits, like foreign direct investment. With respect to political elites, I argue that the executive is more likely to adopt comprehensive human rights policy in expectation of national judicial or legislative implementation. I find evidence that national judicial implementation and subsequently executive human rights policy change, is more likely when the national judiciary is powerful. I argue that national legislative implementation of adverse regional court judgments is more likely as the size of the legislative opposition grows. I find limited support for the role of the size of the legislative opposition, and I suggest this may be due to key institutional design features of the legislature.

In this final empirical chapter, I show that executive capacity and willingness complement one another in generating executive human rights policy change following adverse regional human rights court judgment. I show that following an adverse European Court judgment, in the face of mass public pressure, executive human rights policy change is likely regardless of the level of executive capacity. However, high-capacity European executives are more willing to engage in human rights policy change as a result of economic elite pressure than low-capacity European executives. With respect to the Americas, I show that executives are more likely to engage in human rights policy change following an adverse Inter-American Court judgment when the executive is highly willing as a result of mass public and political elite pressure, and this effect grows in the presence of high executive capacity. Similarly, following an adverse Inter-American Court judgment, highly capable executives are more likely to make human rights policy changes when the executive is highly willing as opposed to unwilling.