Towards a Contextualised Understanding of Human Rights Treaty Implementation

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter offers a synthesis of the arguments outlined in this book and discusses the main findings from the empirical study of the Swiss case. It appears that international law obligations do not impact the national level following a descending trajectory. Rather, they provide opportunities and constraints to a core group of subnational actors who use them to achieve their goals. These actors make the most of their agency and they can contribute to the engagement of political authorities with the treaties, ultimately enhancing local human rights protection. However, their contribution is specific and necessarily selective, and whether and how subnational political actors engage with human rights treaties is strongly shaped by favourable political conditions and institutional resources, whose absence is likely to undermine or at least strongly limit the process. Furthermore, in the last section of this chapter we sketch a new agenda for this area of research.