Not all responses are remedies: Scandinavian implementation of ECtHR judgments

This article is the first to comprehensively examine how Scandinavian states—renowned for their strong human rights records—comply with the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Employing a mixed-method analysis, it evaluates all adverse judgments and friendly settlements involving Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; the three countries’ communications with the Committee of Ministers; and interviews with experts from each jurisdiction and from the Department for the Execution of Judgments at the Court. By integrating a systematic, bird’s-eye overview with an in-depth study of each country’s domestic implementation architecture, the article offers several novel contributions to the broader scholarship on human rights compliance and remedies. First, it identifies four prominent ways in which Denmark, Norway, and Sweden respond to adverse ECtHR judgments. Second, it reveals that, even in jurisdictions with strong compliance traditions, symbolic responses to the Court’s judgments are as prevalent as substantive remedies. Third, it introduces the “remedy vs. response” dichotomy as a valuable heuristic for assessing the remedial nature of execution-related governmental communications with the Committee of Ministers. Overall, the findings challenge conventional wisdom by empirically demonstrating that—even among the most diligent compliers—not all responses constitute remedies.