Do Human Rights Work? Evidence From Prison Death Investigations in Scotland

ABSTRACT

It seems self-evident that countries which have embraced human rights would have better human rights compliance. This article examines this assumption in prison death investigations in Scotland (called fatal accident inquiries or FAIs). The right to life (Article 2 ECHR) includes a procedural right to an effective investigation of deaths occurring in state custody. We applied rights-informed principles of investigation to 20 years of inquiries into prison deaths (2005–2024, 266 reports). We found that inquiries take years, rarely identify problems, cannot hold anyone liable, rarely involve families and commonly rely on evidence contributed solely by state actors. These results, occurring as prison deaths increase in Scotland, suggest the role of rights in investigations is limited and has had little impact. Instead, we found evidence of an alternative function of human rights, to excuse state inaction in prisoner deaths. We argue that rights can be instrumentalised to work against prisoners’ safety, and death investigations provide a forum that may legitimate this.