604 Wendy Hunter and Francesca Reece enforcement mechanisms make it very difficult for international human rights forces to triumph over the de facto victories of domestic governments. In all, despite the Inter-American system’s ability to issue “some of the most farreaching decisions on human rights” (Sikkink 2017, 13), there is little it can do now that the Dominican government has covered itself, however minimally. Moreover, backlog in the legal system effectively paralyzes progress. Skillful noncompliance can “work,” and governments can exploit shortfalls in the system. Whereas some might regard the DR’s noncompliance as incidental—due to the lack of a strong activist network, no incentive to move beyond tactical concessions, and the short attention span of the international media—it was arguably quite purposeful.27 Those factors were only influential because of governmental strategies to erect onerous administrative roadblocks, divert blame, and defuse outcry. Consistent with this picture of ill intention was the government’s use of administrative processes to screen out Dominico-Haitians, its reference to them collectively as “foreigners” even before determining people’s individual status, and its insistence on staying the course when it became clear that most victims could not meet the requirements to restore their citizenship. This case thus serves as a corrective to an overly triumphalist perspective on the Inter-American system. Conclusion A core takeaway from this analysis is that countries can deprive victims of fundamental redress and get away with serious abuses by moving them into a gray zone, especially if media coverage cannot be kept alive and legal support for victims is lacking. The 2014 naturalization law, marketed as a corrective to the 2013 Constitutional Court ruling, offered no real solution for the largest group affected. Even given the tradition of birthright citizenship and the Inter-American human rights system, the small Caribbean country did not back down decisively when criticized after enacting La Sentencia. Instead, it successfully used administrative obstructionism to keep many from restoring citizenship. The issue has died a slow death as activism and news coverage have faded. Inaccurate perceptions that denationalization has been “reversed” deprive victims of visibility. According to Elena Lorac, the national coordinator of Reconoci.do, “The state does not recognise that there is a problem to be solved. Today our struggle is much more complex than it was at the beginning because now there is a feeling that the situation has been resolved, but it has not.”28 Theoretically, we have problematized a strategy that governments can use to deflect international criticism and uphold sovereign decision-making. Administrative obstructionism is most likely to be used by governments that are susceptible to international norms, when the preponderance of pressure comes from outside the country and relevant norm-carrying institutions lack strong monitoring capabilities. It is far more difficult to monitor individual cases and call out countries on administrative manipulations rather than on the law. Relatedly, it is harder to address a series of incremental decisions than to attack a dramatic, bright-line event. Moreover, after a violation has shifted from the realm of high officials to lower levels of government, international forces experience more difficulty in targeting blame. Under such circumstances, a partial concession can serve to diminish international pressure. 27 The objection is not to the DR’s effort to cut back on automatic birthright citizenship per se but to the manner in which it was done. France, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand have eliminated unconditional birthright citizenship in recent years, yet none has done so with a retroactive component (Sears 2014, 436–437). 28 “Dominican Republic: ‘We Are Part of a Global Anti-racist Movement,’” CIVICUS interview with Elena Lorac, August 13, 2020, https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/interviews/4562-dominican-republicwe-are-part-of-a-global-anti-racist-movement. https://doi.org/10.1017/lar.2022.48 Published online by Cambridge University Press