ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the ineffectiveness of international pressures in promoting national compliance with international human rights rules and norms. When a coalition government led by the left-wing Syriza party assumed power, the sustenance of carceral conditions that stand in blatant violation of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) has served dominant politico-economic interests inside Greece. From a domestic politico-economic perspective, then, bringing carceral conditions in line with the ECHR must have been taken to be of insufficient utility at best, whilst risking serious counterproductive effects at worst. Greek non-compliance with human rights norms has been explained in official discourse and socio-legal scholarship alike by reference to ‘capacity’ limitations, with accounts variously stressing resource and institutional constraints. The resistance of non-compliant states to international pressure may be accounted for by the existence of a powerful normative counter-regime that serves to undermine the potency of the international human rights regime itself.
