| The questions of whether and why states comply with international legal obligations are essential to understanding how states regard international law. The compliance literature has provided research on "first-order compliance" with treaty provisions, but there has not been equal examination of "second-order compliance" with the decisions of international courts. This study fills this lacuna through an investigation of state compliance with the decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights between 1989 and 2008. It delves into the questions of when, why, and to what extent states comply with the decisions of regional judicial mechanisms in the absence of enforcement. Studies of four countries---Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras---are grounded in constructivist and rationalist theoretical approaches. This research demonstrates that normative commitment is necessary for compliance to occur, but states are often strategic in their specific compliance choices, as they consider capacity, the cost of different orders, and case publicity when deciding when to comply and which orders to fulfill. |
