Professor Rachel Murray (Principal Applicant) at the Human Rights Implementation Centre at Bristol University; Dr Clara Sandoval at the School of Law and Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex (co-applicant); Professor Philip Leach and Dr Alice Donald at Middlesex University (co-applicants) and Director of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre; and Professor Frans Viljoen Director of the Human Rights Centre at Pretoria University (co-applicant) have been awarded major ESRC funding (£1,340,000).  

This is an ambitious three-year project exploring the compliance records of nine countries in Europe, Africa and the Americas in relation to decisions or communications handed down by UN Treaty monitoring bodies and regional human rights commissions and courts.  The Open Society Justice Initiative, part of the Open Society Foundations, will serve as a partner organization for the research, which seeks to bring together policy makers, practitioners, and academics.

The team sought this grant as they considered it to be of significant importance to understand why states comply or not with international human rights decisions. This is a unique partnership between key experts on the subject and the leading human rights centres in the UK and Africa, together with the Justice Initiative.

The project will start in September 2015.