Is the Justice Cascade Over? Accountability in an Era of Impunity

<p>The emergence of individual criminal accountability for war crimes, mass atrocities, and the violation of human rights is among the most dramatic normative developments in international politics during the past half-century. Yet, recent political events -- from contestation of the International Criminal Court to the election of populist leaders opposed to legal accountability -- have fueled widespread concern that the world is returning to an era of impunity. In this article, we document a sharp global decline in human rights prosecutions since 2010 and develop a theory to explain this trend. We argue that human rights accountability requires a government willing and able to supply justice and a domestic audience that demands it. After 2010, the demand for prosecutions decreased in states with responsive governments and increased in states with the types of governments least likely to supply justice. We test this argument using an original dataset of all international, foreign, and domestic human rights prosecutions initiated between 1970 and 2023. Consistent with our theory, we show that the global shift is driven by a reduction of prosecutions in domestic courts and that together supply and demand factors are strongly predictive of domestic trial initiation. Our argument and findings indicate that the global decline in prosecutions is both a sign of success and a cause for concern. While past legacies of violence were addressed in openings created by democratic transitions, contemporary democratic backsliding risks denying justice to today’s victims.</p>