Human Rights Enforcement from Below: Private Actors and Prosecutorial Momentum in Latin America and Europe

Over the last three decades, thousands of prosecutions for human rights abuses have progressed through domestic courts, a puzzling fact considering that state leaders have little incentive to punish their own agents. Previous studies have advanced rational-choice or sociological-institutionalist accounts of this phenomenon, emphasizing the role of political coalitions or regional cultures. Few, though, have recognized the local, private struggles that lie at the root of the trend toward domestic human rights enforcement. In this article, we develop a historical-institutionalist theory of normative change centered on the notion of “prosecutorial momentum.” We contend that the rise in domestic trials against rights-abusing state agents in Europe and Latin America results in large part from the cumulative efforts of victims and human rights lawyers utilizing their rights to private criminal prosecution. Using a new data set and mixed methods, we offer a systematic analysis of how rights to private criminal prosecution, when activated in response to a legacy of repression, helps set in motion sustained efforts to pursue domestic enforcement and compliance with international law.