A NUDGE IN THE RIGHTS DIRECTION? REDESIGNING THE ARCHITECTURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS REMEDIES

2026-07-22

Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the effectiveness of human rights law and judgments, yet almost no attention has been given to the impact of remedies on states’ compliance practices or the internalisation of human rights into their domestic legal systems. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research in six countries, the project aims to expose the dynamics of the (non)compliant state and the efficacy of different types of remedies in changing the behaviour of human rights violators. These goals will be achieved through three sub-studies: (1) an empirical study of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to determine the compliance and internalisation practices and their link to different remedies; (2) the exploration and analysis of states’ internalisation practices and policies (including the identification of players that shape this practice) to determine whether remedies play a crucial role in shifting states’ actions; (3) a computer simulation to discover how we can change the architecture of human rights remedies to increase compliance and internalisation, and to deter future violations. The central aim of the project is to identify new remedy options – incentives or nudges – which human rights institutions can use to deter future violations. Using the example of the ECtHR and its caselaw, the research will build on insights from behavioural economics to interrogate widespread assumptions about monetisation of human rights, public shaming, and deference shown to states in the specification of remedies. Through computer simulation, the project will aim to predict how monetary and non-monetary remedies could be used separately or together to alter the behaviour of states and their key players. The research will be ground-breaking in many ways, reshaping the field of human rights remedies and contributing crucially to the emerging field of behavioural international law.

United Kingdom (UK)

2026-02-01