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The Empirical Turn in International Legal Scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Gregory Shaffer  and
Tom Ginsburg
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Extract

There is a new empirical turn in international legal scholarship. Building on decades of theoretical work in law and social science, a new generation of empirical studies is elaborating on how international law works in different contexts. The theoretical debate over whether international law matters is a stale one. What matters now is the study of the conditions under which international law is formed and has effects. International law is the product of specific forces and factors; it accomplishes its ends under particular conditions. The trend toward empirical study has expanded through the efforts of scholars in multiple disciplines, with legal scholars playing central roles independently and as collaborators in generating new empirical work. Legal scholars are also now pressed to be increasingly sophisticated consumers of this work. It is time to take stock and evaluate this new generation of multidisciplinary, multimethod empirical scholarship.

Type
Research Article
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American Journal of International Law , Volume 106 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 1 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2012

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References

1 This recognition was manifested in the American Society of International Law’s award of its 2010 book prize to Beth Simmons’s pathbreaking empirical study of international human rights law. Beth A. Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights—International Law in Domestic Politics (2009). It is also noteworthy that ASIL’s 2010 Annual Meeting was the first to include a panel, “Empirical Approaches to International Law,” specifically addressing this new direction in international legal scholarship. The Society’s executive director participated.

2 See Nourse, Victoria & Shaffer, Gregory, Varieties of New Legal Realism: Can a New World Order Prompt a New Legal Theory, 95 Cornell L. Rev. 61 (2009)Google Scholar.

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4 As Hans Morgenthau aptly put it in 1940, in the legal realist tradition,

[t]he science of international law, as well as the social sciences in general, are still awaiting their Newton, their Leibniz, their Faraday, their Carnot, their Maxwell, and their Hertz. To expect the contemporaneous lawyer to be an “engineer” or “technician” of the law means to expect Edison before Faraday, Wright before Carnot, Marconi before Maxwell and Hertz. And this is certainly a futile expectation. The great task which lies before the social sciences is to prepare the work of the latter so that the former can build upon it.

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7 Abram Chayes, The Cuban Missile Crisis: International Crises and the Role of Law (1974); Abram Chayes & Antonia Chayes, The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements (1995).

8 See Reisman, W. Michael, International Incidents: Introduction to a New Genre in the Study of International Law, 10 Yale J. Int’l L. 1 (1984)Google Scholar (but critiquing mainstream international legal scholarship for focusing on the fantasy world of “cases” rather than on “incidents” in which law plays a normative role without states bringing a matter before a court).

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11 ‘This symposium issue was followed by an edited volume entitled The Methods of International Law, in which a new contribution was added that addressed Third World approaches to international law. See Anghie, Antony & Chimni, B. S., Third World Approaches to International Law and Individual Responsibility in Internal Conflict, in The Methods of International Law 185 (Ratner, Steven R. & Slaughter, Anne-Marie eds., 2004)Google Scholar.

12 See Slaughter, Anne-Marie & Ratner, Steven, The Method is the Message, 93 AJIL 410 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 See generally Mertz, Elizabeth & Suchman, Mark, A New Legal Empiricism: Assessing ELS and NLR, 6 Ann. Rev. L. & Soc. Sci., 555 (2010)Google Scholar (comparing the “empirical legal studies” movement with its journal, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, which is almost exclusively quantitative, and the “new legal realist” movement, which is more ecumenical).

14 See, e.g., Researching Society and Culture (Clive Seale ed., 2000); Brady, Henry & Collier, David, Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards (2d ed. 2010)Google Scholar; Gary King, Robert Keohane & Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (1994); Robert M. Lawless, Jennifer K. Robbennolt & Thomas S. Ulen, Empirical Methods in Law (2009); Miller, Delbert & Salkind, Neil, Handbook of Research Design and Social Measurement (6th ed. 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sayer, Andrew, Methods in Social Science (2d ed. 1992)Google Scholar.

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17 See Simmons, supra note 1, and part III on Human Rights.

18 See part III on International Investment Law.

19 See Steinberg, Richard & Zasloff, Jonathan, Power and International Law, 100 AJIL 64 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Jack L. Goldsmith & Eric A. Posner, The Limits of International Law (2005). For a modified realist position, see Steinberg & Zasloff, supra note 19.

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23 Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization (Inge Kaul, Pedro Conceição, Katell Le Goulven & Ronald U. Mendoza eds., 2003); Todd Sandler, Global Collective Action (2004).

24 Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (1960).

25 See, e.g., Finnemore, Martha & Toope, Stephen J., Alternatives to “Legalization”: Richer Views of Law and Politics, 55 Int’l Org. 743, 743 (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 For a nice overview, see Halliday, Terence & Osinsky, Pavel, Globalization of Law, 32 Ann. Rev. Soc. 447 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See Meyer, John W., The World Polity and the Authority of the Nation-State, in Studies of the Modern World-System 109(Bergesen, AlbertJ. ed., 1980)Google Scholar; Fmnemore, Mītthz, Rules of War and Wars of Rules: The lnternational Red Cross and the Restraint of State Violence, in Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875, at 149 (Boli, John & Thomas, George M. eds., 1999)Google Scholar; Elizabeth Heger Boyle, Female Genital Cutting: Cultural Conflict in the Global Community (2002); Ryan Goodman & Derek Jinks, Socializing States: Promoting Human Rights Through International Law (forthcoming).

28 See Sally Engle Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law Into Local Justice (2006). Third World Approaches to International Law come out of postcolonial studies and include the work of ASIL’s 2010 Grotius Lecturer, Antony Anghie. Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (2005).

29 See Terence Halliday & Bruce Carruthers, Bankrupt: Global Lawmaking and Systemic Financial Crisis (2009); Katharina Pistor & Philip Wellons, The Role of Law and Legal Institutions in Asian Economic Development 1960-1995 (1999).

30 Data are available in an online appendix at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id= 1444448.

31 The number of articles on treaties more than tripled during the same period, and the combined percentage of articles on law and treaties increased over fivefold from 4.32 percent (1980-89) to 10.88 percent (1990-99) to 22.91 percent (2000-09).

32 The Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, the other law and economics journal with a strong empirical focus, has been less willing to publish international law articles, with less than 1 percent (2 of 233) articles on the topic published since 2000, and none beforehand.

33 For an excellent piece using empirical support, see Steinberg, supra note 9. A brief sampling of such calls for empirical work includes Dunoff, Jeffrey L. & Trachtman, Joel P., Symposium on Method In International Law: The Law and Economics of Humanitarian Law Violations in Internal Conflict, 93 AJIL 394, 394–95 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (“While law and economics is rich in theory, it exalts empiricism (in which it is surprisingly poor).”); Franck, Thomas M., Centennial Essay in Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the AJIL and the ASIL: The Power of Legitimacy and the Legitimacy of Power: International Law in an Age of Power Disequilibrium, 100 AJIL 88, 96 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (“To address that issue, it becomes necessary to resort to a kind of legal empiricism: to ask how many states, in how many situations of disputation, currently discredit the law pertaining to the use of force in word and deed?”); and Raustiala, Kal, Form and Substance in International Agreements, 99 AJIL 581, 605–06 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (“No matter which theoretical approach one favors, the empirical impact of different structures should be understood. Yet the dearth of research on this topic makes any such claims tentative.”). For an earlier critique in a similar vein, see Baldwin, Gordon B., Book Review, 57 AJIL 976 (1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reviewing International Contracts: Choice of Law and Language) (“International law study today suffers from the scarcity of empirical research.”). We find increasing calls for empirical work particularly in reviews of books on international law. See also Alvarez, José E., Book Review, 102 AJIL 909, 913 (2008)Google Scholar (reviewing Gus Van Harten, Investment Treaty Arbitration and Public Law (2007)) (“Also missing is any more general empirical effort to demonstrate such bias in the many public arbitral decisions issued to date.”); Bodansky, Daniel, Book Review, 99 AJIL 280, 283 (2005)Google Scholar (reviewing Eyal Benvenisti, Sharing Transboundary Resources: International Law and Optimal Resource Use (2002)) (“Like most international lawyers, however, Benvenisti appears more comfortable with legal doctrine than with systematic empirical research.”); Nzelibe, Jide, Book Review, 103 AJIL 619, 620 (2009)Google Scholar (reviewing Joel Trachtman, The Economic Structure of International Law (2008)) (“[Trachtman] cautions that many of his empirical assumptions about how states behave should not be taken at face value. Throughout the book he frets about the need to subject his principal claims, as well as those of competing approaches, to rigorous empirical testing.”); Simmons, Beth A., Book Review, 103 AJIL 388, 391 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reviewing Mary Ellen O’Connell, The Power and Purpose of International Law (2008)) (“This last claim is tough to sustain empirically, and while it is asserted vigorously in the critique of Goldsmith and Posner and restated in various ways throughout the book, evidence of the impact of legal rules and justifications on behavior is not systematically adduced.”).

34 Since 2007, this Journal has published Viljoen, Frans & Louw, Lirette, State Compliance with the Recommendations of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 1994-2004, 101 AJIL 1 (2007)Google Scholar. Seeaho Helfer, Laurence R., Alter, Karen & Guerzovich, M. Florencia, Islands of Effective International Adjudication: Constructing an Intellectual Property Rule of Law in the Andean Community, 103 AJIL 1 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dickinson, Laura A., Military Lawyers on the Battlefield: An Empirical Account of International Law Compliance, 104 AJIL 1, 1 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kontorovich, Eugene & Art, Steven, An Empirical Examination of Universal Jurisdiction for Piracy, 104 AJIL 436 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langer, Maximo, The Diplomacy of Universal Jurisdiction: The Regulating Role of the Political Branches in the Transnational Prosecution of International Crimes, 105 AJIL 1 (2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sarfaty, Galit A., Why Culture Matters in International Institutions: The Marginality of Human Rights at the World Bank, 103 AJIL 647, 649 (2009)Google Scholar; Goodman, Ryan, Humanitarian Inter vention and Pretexts for War, 100 AJIL 107 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (systematically reviewing and synthesizing existing empirical work so as to build empirically grounded theoretical claims on the law of international humanitarian intervention, and challenging conventional arguments that legalizing humanitarian intervention will necessarily lead to more, exacerbated international armed conflicts because humanitarian justifications will be used as pretexts).

35 On political science, see Hafner-Burton et al., supra note 22.

36 National Science Foundation, Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request, at http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2011/index.jsp. For example, each of us has received multiple NSF grants for quantitative and qualitative empirical work, providing time and resources for engaging on empirical questions.

37 Nourse & Shaffer, supra note 2.

38 See Daniel Bodansky, The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law 35 (2010) (“interest in the issue of effectiveness…has resulted from the increasing interaction between international lawyers and political scientists, as well as the turn toward empiricism in many areas of legal scholarship”).

39 For an interesting assessment of the selective invocation of international law and other norms by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), see Ratner, Steven R., Law Promotion Beyond Law Talk: The Red Cross, Persuasion, and the Laws of War, 22 Eur. J. Int’l L. 459 (2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (building from numerous interviews and a year of participant observation at the ICRC offices in Geneva).

40 See, e.g., Nourse & Shaffer, supra note 2, at 117-19 (“[T]here are also the related risks of scientism…. One of the grave dangers of a ‘your science is better than my science’ approach is the risk that it hides important (and perhaps false) normative claims through the very categories it chooses…. If the categories one uses in a study are themselves biased, inaccurate, or false, then the statistical form will simply add a veneer of legitimacy and power to what might be entirely false. Eugenics is the classic example of this kind of process.”).

41 Koskenniemi, Martti, Constitutionalism as Mindset: Reflections on Kantian Themes About International Law and Globalization, 8 Theoretical Inquiries L. 9, 30 (2007)Google Scholar; see also Verdirame, Guglielmo, Review|Essay, ‘The Divided West’: International Lawyers in Europe and America, 18 Eur. I. Int’l L. 553, 558–61 (2007)Google Scholar.

42 Suskind, Ron, Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush, N.Y. Times Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004, at 44 Google Scholar.

43 Nourse & Shaffer, supra note 2, at 84-85, 88, 112-21.

44 Carothers, Thomas, Empirical Perspectives on the Emerging Norm of Democracy in International Law, 86 ASIL Proc. 261, 266–67 (1992)Google Scholar.

45 Bederman, David J., Book Review, 100 AJIL 490, 490 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reviewing John Yoo, The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11 (2005)) (“[i]n actuality, of course, we have seen a cyclical pattern of scholarship in this field”); Trubek, David M. & Esser, John, “Critical Empiricism “and American Critical Legal Studies: Paradox, Program, or Pandora’s Box?, 12 German L.J. 115, 119 (2011)Google Scholar (referring to “cycles of legal scholarship”).

46 See, e.g., Oppenheim, Lassa, The Science of International Law: Its Task and Method, 2 AJIL 313, 315 (1908)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (“The rules of the present international law are to a great extent not written rules, but based on custom.”).

47 Cf. Guzman, Andrew T., How International Law Works 218 (2008)Google Scholar (role of reputation in compliance with customary international law); Goldsmith, Jack L. & Posner, Eric A., Understanding the Resemblance between Modern and Traditional Customary International Law, 40 Va. J. Int’l L. 639, 640 (2000)Google Scholar (challenging the “faulty premise…that CIL…influences national behavior”); Norman, George & Trachtman, Joel P., The Customary International Law Game, 99 AJIL 541, 542 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (contending that “CIL rules may modify the payoffs associated with relevant behavior and thereby affect behavior through self-interest”).

48 Guzman, Andrew T., Saving Customary International Law, 27 Mich. J. Int’l L. 115, 119 (2005)Google Scholar (“modern international relations have made the treaty a more important tool, relative to CIL, than it has been in the past”); Clive Parry, The Sources and Evidences of International Law 34 (1965) (arguing that customary international law has become less important than treaties).

49 For one good study see Baker, Roozbeh, Customary International Law in the 21st Century: Old Challenges and New Debates, 21 Eur. J. Int’l L. 173 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (arguing for enhanced role of tribunals in formation of customary international law). See also Ginsburg, Tom, Chernykh, Svitlana & Elkins, Zachary, Commitment and Diffusion: How and Why National Constitutions Incorporate International Law, 2008 U. Ill. L. Rev. 201 (2008)Google Scholar (discussing the impact of customary international law in national practice); Holzmeyer, Cheryl, Human Rights in an Era of Neoliberal Globalization: The Alien Tort Claims Act and Grassroots Mobilization in Doe v. Unocal, 43 L. Soc. Rev. 271 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (empirical case study of the impact abroad of invoking customary international law before U.S. courts).

50 Bradley, Curtis & Gulati, Mitu, Withdrawing from Customary International Law, 120 Yale L.J. 202 (2010)Google Scholar. See also symposium on this issue in 21 Duke J. Comp. & Int’l L. 1 (Fall 2010).

51 Gamble, John King, Ku, Charlotte & Strayer, Chris, Human-Centric International Law: A Model and a Search for Empirical Indicators, 14 Tul. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 61, 72 (2005)Google Scholar (“The metaphor of a rising tide seems appropriate.”).

52 See, e.g., Fassbender, Bardo, The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community (2009); Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance (Dunoff, Jeffrey L. & Trachtman, Joel P. eds., 2009)Google Scholar.

53 Greenberg, Jonathan D., Does Power Trump Law?, 55 Stan. Law. Rev. 1789, 1790 (2003)Google Scholar (emphasis omitted) (comparing figures from 1979 to roughly 2002).

54 Gamble et al., supra note 51, at 61-80.

55 Id. at 72 (“there has been a significant expansion in the range of activities governed by multilateral treaties, with the greatest increase occurring in the economic sphere”); Cogan, Jacob Katz, The Regulatory Turn in International Law, 52 Harv. Int’l L.J. 321 (2011)Google Scholar.

56 Cf. Denise Degarmo, International Environmental Treaties and State Behavior (2004); Franck, Susan D., Foreign Direct Investment, Investment Treaty Arbitration, and the Rule of Law, 19 Pac. Mcgeorge Global Bus. & Dev. L.J. 337, 338 (2007)Google Scholar (“During the past two decades, the number of investment treaties has tripled.”); Helfer, Laurence R., Understanding Change in International Organizations: Globalization and Innovation in the ILO, 59 Vand. L. Rev. 649, 700 (2006)Google Scholar (noting increase in number of International Labour Organization agreements); Stewart, Andy, Book Note, 43 Stan. J. Int’l L. 332, 341 (2007)Google Scholar (reviewing Biotechnology and International Law (Francesco Franciono & Tullio Scovazzi eds., 2006)) (noting the “increase in the number of treaties addressing food security and agrobiotechnology”).

57 Miles, Thomas & Posner, Eric A., Which States Enter into Treaties, and Why? 2 (University of Chicago Law School, Law and Economics, Working Paper No. 420, 2008)Google Scholar.

58 Abbott, Kenneth & Snidal, Duncan, Hard and Soft Law in International Governance, 54 Int’l Org. 421 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shaffer, Gregory C. & Pollack, Mark A., Hard vs. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements and Antagonists in International Governance, 94 Minn. L. Rev. 706 (2010)Google Scholar.

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60 See, e.g., Commitment and Compliance: the Role of Non-Binding Norms in The International Legal System (Dinah Shelton ed., 2004); Kirton, John J. & Trebilcock, Michael J., Introduction: Hard Choices and Soft Law in Sustainable Global Governance, in Hard Choices, Soft Law: Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment and Social Governance 3, 9 (Kirton, John J. & Trebilcock, Michael J. eds., 2004)Google Scholar; Ratner, Steven R., Does International Law Matter in Preventing Ethnic Conflict?, 32 N.Y.U. J. Int’l L. & Pol. 591 (2000)Google Scholar (an empirical study building from interviews and participant observation regarding the use of soft law in the office of the high commissioner on national minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe); Shaffer & Pollack, supra note 58.

61 Voigt, Stefan, The Economics of Informal International Law—an Empirical Assessment, in Informal International Law: Mapping the Action and Testing Concepts of Accountability and Effectiveness 16 (Pauwelyn, Joost, Wesssel, Ramses & Wouters, Jan eds., forthcoming 2012)Google Scholar, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1835963. The act, however, exempts informal agreements that relate to specified military activities, have a national security classification, involve coordination between postal administration and aviation agencies, or related to anticrime and counternarcotics policies.

62 Koremenos, Barbara, Contracting Around International Uncertainty, 99 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 549 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 See also Koremenos, Barbara, When, What, and Why Do States Choose to Delegate?, 71 Law & Contemp. Probs. 151 (2008)Google Scholar; Koremenos, Barbara, If Only Half of International Agreements Have Dispute Resolution Provisions, Which Half Needs Explaining?, 36 J. Legal Stud. 189 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 Downs, George, Rocke, David M. & Barsoom, Peter N., Is the Good News About Compliance Good News About Cooperation?, 50 Int’l Org. 379 (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Simmons, Beth A., International Law and State Behavior: Commitment and Compliance in International Monetary Affairs, 94 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 819 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simmons, Beth A., Money and the Law: Why Comply with the Public International Law of Money, 25 Yale J. Int’l L. 323 (2000)Google Scholar.

66 von Stein, Jana, Do Treaties Constrain or Screen? Selection Bias and Treaty Compliance, 99 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 611 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 See Simmons, Beth A. & Hopkins, Daniel J., The Constraining Power of International Treaties: Theory and Methods, 99 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 623 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (arguing that the effects of Article VIII declarations are robust to a number of selection models, including matching techniques that try to mimic quasi-experiments). Cf. Grieco, Joseph, Gelpi, Christopher F. & Warren, T. Camber, When Preferences and Commitments Collide: The Effect of Relative Partisan Shifts on International Treaty Compliance, 63 Int’l Org. 341 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (providing evidence that state preferences change based on partisan shifts in the executive branch and that these changes reduce the constraining effects of Article VIII, although Article VIII continues to exercise significant causal effects even in the face of relative shifts in executive partisan orientation); Kelley, Judith, Who Keeps International Commitments and Why? The International Criminal Court and Bilateral Non-surrender Agreements, 101 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 573, 573 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (using creative methodology to find that many parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17, 1998, 2187 UNTS 3, refused to enter bilateral nonsurrender agreements with the United States because of the importance of keeping commitments, concluding that “international commitments do not just screen states; they also constrain”).

68 Technically, endogeneity refers to a correlation between a measure of an independent variable and the error term in a regression on the dependent variable. It has many possible causes, one of which is reverse causation—a situation in which changes in the dependent variable cause changes in the independent (explanatory) variable. This occurrence is problematic because the standard assumption is that causality goes from the independent variable to the dependent variable.

69 We briefly cover empirical work on other international institutions, such as standard-setting bodies, elsewhere. See Ginsburg, Tom & Shaffer, Gregory, How Does International Law Work?, in Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research 753 (Cane, Peter & Kritzer, Herbert eds., 2011)Google Scholar.

70 Included are twelve international courts and arbitral bodies, nine regional bodies, and four hybrid criminal courts involving a mix of domestic and international judges.

71 Yves Dezalay & Bryant G. Garth, Dealing in Virtue: International Commercial Arbitration and the Construction of A Transnational Legal Order (1996); John Hagan, Justice in the Balkans (2003); Daniel Terris, Cesare Romano & Leigh Swigart, The International Judge: An Introduction To the Men and Women Who Decide the World’s Cases (2007); Voeten, Eric, The Politics of International Judicial Appointments: Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights, 61 Int’l Org. 669 (2007)Google Scholar.

72 See, e.g., Posner, Eric & Yoo, John, Judicial Independence in International Tribunals, 93 Calif. L. Rev. 1 (2005)Google Scholar.

73 Ginsburg, Tom & McAdams, Richard, Adjudicating in Anarchy: An Expressive Theory of International Dispute Resolution, 45 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1229 (2004)Google Scholar; Helfer, Laurence & Slaughter, Anne-Marie, Why States Create International Tribunals: A Response to Professors Posner and Yoo, 93 Calif. L. Rev. 899 (2005)Google Scholar. See also the WTO scholarship assessed in part III below.

74 See discussion in Hafner-Burton et al., supra note 22.

75 We nonetheless note that in international disputes involving private parties (such as investment arbitration), class, career incentives, and ideological orientation could also matter, complicating the analysis, particularly in light of the relatively small number of decisions.

76 Posner, Eric & de Figueiredo, Miguel, Is the International Court of Justice Biased?, 34 J. Legal Stud. 599 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although they find no evidence of regional bias, they have few data regarding this last issue because of the lack of participation of two-thirds of the UN membership.

77 Voeten, Eric, The Impartiality of International Judges: Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights, 102 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 417 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 See also Bruinsma, Fred J., The Room at the Top: Separate Opinions in Grand Chambers of the ECHR (1998— 2006), 28 Recht Der Werkelijkheid 7 (2007)Google Scholar.

79 Voeten, supra note 77, at 425.

80 Ginsburg & McAdams, supra note 73. For example, Article 31(2) of the ICJ Statute provides: “If the Court includes upon the Bench a judge of the nationality of one of the parties, any other party may choose a person to sit as judge. Such person shall be chosen preferably from among those persons who have been nominated as candidates as provided in Articles 4 and 5.” Article 31 (3) provides: “If the Court includes upon the Bench no judge of the nationality of the parties, each of these parties may proceed to choose a judge as provided in paragraph 2 of this Article.”

81 Dezalay & Garth, supra note 71.

82 Ginsburg & McAdams, supra note 73; see also Constanze Schulte, Compliance with Decisions of the International Court of Justice (2004).

83 Allee, Todd & Huth, Paul, Legitimizing Dispute Settlement: International Legal Rulings as Political Cover, 100 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 219 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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85 Helfer et al., supra note 34.

86 See also Gregory Shaffer, Defending Interests: Public-Private Partnerships in WTO Litigation (2003) (discussing the catalyzing role of private interests in WTO interstate litigation).

87 Friedmann, The Changing Structure of International Law, supra note 4.

88 The prisoner’s dilemma game is a “collaborative game,” in which different parties have mutual interests in collaborating but face incentives not to do so because of fear of noncooperation by the other party. In contrast, the game of battle of the sexes is a “coordination game” in which the parties wish to cooperate but under different terms. For example, a husband and a wife may wish to vacation with each other, but one prefers the mountains and the other the seaside. See discussion in Stein, Arthur A., Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World, 36 Int’l Org. 299 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 See Goldsmith & Posner, supra note 20.

90 Louis Henkin, How Nations Behave (1979).

91 Downs et al., supra note 64.

92 See, e.g., Helfer, Laurence R., Exiting Treaties, 91 Va. L. Rev. 1579, 1641 (2005)Google Scholar (noting that states have ratified human rights treaties with “dozens of legally dubious reservations”); Helfer, Laurence, Not Fully Committed? Reservations, Risk and Treaty Design, 31 Yale J. Int’l L. 367 (2006)Google Scholar.

93 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Dec. 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. NO. 20-100 (1988), 1465 Unts 85; see Powell, Emilia & Staton, Jeffrey, Domestic Judicial Institutions and Human Rights Treaty Violation, 53 Int’l Studies Q. 149 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Gilligan, Michael & Nesbitt, Nathaniel, Do Norms Reduce Torture?, 38 J. Legal Stud. 445 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (using the percentage of states in the world that are party to the Convention Against Torture as a proxy for the emerging anti-torture norm; using that proxy to predict torture levels from the date of the Convention’s being opened for signature in 1985, to 2003; and finding no support for the proposition that the anti-torture norm reduces torture over time).

94 Boli-Bennett, John & Meyer, John W., The Ideology of Childhood and the State, 43 Am. Soc. Rev. 797 (1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goodman & Jinks, supra note 27; Boyle, supra note 27; Meyer, supra note 27.

95 Simmons, supra note 1; Hathaway, Oona A., Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference?, 111 Yale L. J. 1935 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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97 Hathaway, supra note 95; see also Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., Tsutsui, Kiyoteru & Meyer, John, International Human Rights Law and the Politics of Legitimation: Repressive States and Human Rights Treaties, 23 Int’l Soc. 115 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98 A recent analysis by Peter Rosendorff and James Hollyer turns this argument on its head, arguing that offenders from authoritarian regimes ratify, knowing that they will incur international costs, as a signal to domestic opponents about the government’s willingness to repress. James Hollyer & B. Peter Rosendorff, Why Do Authoritarian Regimes Sign the Convention Against Torture? Signaling, Domestic Politics and Non-compliance, Q. J. Pol. Sci. (forthcoming), available at https://files.nyu.edu/bpr1/public/papers/papers.htm.

99 This legalism can be overcome when sufficient concern is placed on international perceptions. See Simpson, A. W. Brian, Britain and the Genocide Convention, 2003 Brit. Y.B. Int’l L. 5 (case study of the reasons behind British accession to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Dec. 9, 1948 Google Scholar, S. Exec. Doc. NO. 91-B (1970), 78 UNTS 277).

100 Hathaway, Oona, Why Do Countries Commit to Human Rights Treaties?, 51 J. Conflict Resol. 588 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 Hazard analysis is a statistical tool that focuses attention on the duration of a phenomenon of interest and the factors that lead to change. Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier & Bradford S. Jones, Event History Modeling: A Guide for Social Scientists (2004).

102 Charnovitz, Steve, Two Centuries of Participation: NGOs and International Governance, 18 Mich. J. Int’l L. 183, 191–92 (1997)Google Scholar (describing efforts of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to abolish slavery); Nye, Joseph S. Jr., The Information Revolution and the Paradox of American Power, 97 ASIL Proc. 67, 70 (2003)Google Scholar (“Transnational religious organizations opposed to slavery date back to 1775.”).

103 Sept. 25, 1926, 46 Stat. 2183, 60 LNTS 253; see Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States §702 (1987) (listing prohibition on slavery as jus cogens).

104 Dec. 18, 1979, 1249 UNTS 13; see McPhedran, Marilou, Bazilli, Susan, Erickson, Moana & Byrnes, Andrew, The First Cedaw Impact Study: Final Report 25 (2000)Google Scholar (finding that CEDAW would not have been adopted without the work of NGOs); see also Keck, Margaret E. & Sikkink, Kathryn, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics 166–84 (1998)Google Scholar (describing how networks of NGOs took up the issue of violence against women).

105 Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 UNTS 3; see Cohen, Cynthia Price, The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations in the Drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 12 Hum. Rts. Q. 137 (1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (describing involvement of NGOs as shown in UN and NGO documents); see also Grugel, Jean & Peruzzotti, Enrique, Grounding Global Norms in Domestic Politics: Advocacy Coalitions and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Argentina, 42 J. Latin Am. Stud. 29 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (describing activists’ role in promoting children’s rights in Argentina); Grugel, Jean & Peruzzotti, Enrique, Claiming Rights Under Global Governance: Children’s Rights in Argentina, 13 Global Governance 199 (2007)Google Scholar (describing a case study of the impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on domestic advocacy in Argentina).

106 Cf. Anderson, Carol, Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955 (2003)Google Scholar (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was unable to advance a human rights agenda before the United Nations—which resulted in the launching of the Civil Rights Movement without the social and economic rights focus that it needed to achieve black equality); Keck & Sikkink, supra note 104, at 184 (noting how incorporation of women’s issues into a “‘rights’ frame, or master frame supplement[ed] the ‘discrimination’ frame of the 1979 women’s convention and the ‘development’ frame in the women in development debate”).

107 Linda Keith, Camp, Judicial Independence and Human Rights Protection Around the World, 85 Judicature 195 (2002)Google Scholar.

108 Neumayer, Eric, Do International Human Rights Treaties Improve Respect for Human Rights? 49 J. Conflict Resol. 925 (2005);CrossRefGoogle Scholar cf. Simmons, supra note 1; Hathaway, supra note 95; Heyns, Christof & Viljoen, Frans, The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level, 23 Hum. Rts. Q. 483 (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keith, Linda C., The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Does It Make a Difference in Human Rights Behavior?, 36 J. Peace Res. 95 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

109 Simmons, supra note 1.

110 Id. at 155.

111 Id. at 373.

112 See, e.g., Linos, Katerina, Diffusion Through Democracy, 55 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 678 (2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (examining why soft international and transnational legal norms often trigger major national legal reforms, despite the strong constraints that domestic constituencies impose on leaders of democratic states); Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. & Tsut-sui, Kiyoteru, Human Rights in a Globalizing World: The Paradox of Empty Promises, 110 Am. J. Soc. 1373 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

113 See, e.g., Boyle, supra note 27 (using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how actors at the international, national, and local levels affect policies and practices on female circumcision).

114 Merry, supra note 28.

115 Merry, Sally Engel, Human Rights and Transnational Culture: Regulating Gender Violence Through Global Law, 44 Osgoode Hall L.J. 53, 55 (2006)Google Scholar.

116 See also Yves Dezalay & Bryant G. Garth, The Internationalization of Palace Wars (2002) (regarding the adoption of global human rights and neoliberal economic prescriptions in Latin America).

117 Shaffer & Pollack, supra note 58.

118 Cf. Rodwan Abouharb & David Cingranelli, Human Rights and Structural Adjustment (2008) (finding that entry into structural adjustment agreements with the World Bank has a negative impact on human rights protections); Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., Trading Human Rights: How Preferential Trade Agreements Influence Government Repression, 59 Int’l Org. 593 (2005)Google Scholar (showing that international linkages in the form of preferential trade agreements can improve human rights practices).

119 Minzee Kim, Elizabeth Boyle & Kristin Haltinner, Neoliberalism, Transnational Education Norms, and Education Spending in the Developing World, 1983-2004, Law & Soc. Inquiry (forthcoming 2012).

120 Cingarelli, David L. & Richards, David L., The Quantitative Study of Human Rights Violations, in The Encyclopedia of Human Rights (Forsyth, David P. ed., 2009)Google Scholar, at https://umdrive.memphis.edu/drichl/public/POLS%203320%20Spring%20(2008)/Cingranelli_%20Richards_Quantitative_Study_of_Human_Rights_Violations.pdf; Todd Landman & Edzia Carvalho, Measuring Human Rights (2010); see also Kevin E. Davis, Benedict Kingsbury & Sally Engle Merry, Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance (Institute for International Law and Justice Working Paper No. 2010/2, 2011) (discussing how indicators have been used in global governance and how the use of indicators has the potential to alter the nature of global governance). For an earlier work, see Human Rights and Statistics: Getting the Record Straight (Thomas B. Jabine & Richard P. Claude eds., 1992).

121 Goodman, Ryan, Jinks, Derek & Woods, Andrew K., Social Science and Human Rights, in Understanding Social Action, Promoting Human Rights (Goodman, Ryan, Jinks, Derek & Woods, Andrew eds., forth coming 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

122 See, e.g., Blum, Gabriella, The Laws of War and the “Lesser Evil,” 35 Yale J. Int’l L. 1, 51 (2010)Google Scholar (describing IHL’s “expressive force” as its “single source of strength”); Sloane, Robert D., Prologue to a Voluntarist War Convention, 106 Mich. L. Rev. 443, 460 (2007)Google Scholar (“Efforts to revise IHL must consider not only the probable effect of proposed new rules on incentive structures but also their expressive dimensions.”); Sloane, Robert D., The Expressive Capacity of International Punishment: The Limits of the National Law Analogy and the Potential of International Criminal Law, 43 Stan. J. Int’l L. 39, 44 (2007)Google Scholar (“[i]nternational criminal tribunals can contribute most effectively to world public order as self-consciously expressive penal institutions”).

123 See, e.g., Morrow, James D., When Do States Follow the Laws of War?, 101 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 559, 566 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

124 Akhavan, Payam, Beyond Impunity: Can International Criminal Justice Prevent Future Atrocities?, 95 AJIL 7 9 (2001)Google Scholar (“The empirical evidence suggests that the ICTY and the ICTR have significantly contributed to peace building in postwar societies, as well as to introducing criminal accountability into the culture of international relations.”); Bassiouni, M. Cherif, Combating Impunity for International Crimes, 71 U. Colo. L. Rev. 409, 410 (2000)Google Scholar (“The pursuit of justice and accountability, it is believed, fulfills fundamental human values, helps achieve peace and reconciliation, and contributes to the prevention and deterrence of future conflicts.”).

125 See, e.g., Veuthey, Michel, From Solferino to Kosovo: The Contribution of International Humanitarian Law to International Security, in International Humanitarian Law: Origins 212-13 (Carey, John, Dunlap, William V. & Pritchard, R. John eds., 2003)Google Scholar (describing events that led to particular changes in international humanitarian law).

126 See, e.g., Glasius, Marlies, The International Criminal Court: A Global Civil Society Achievement 22–47 (2005)Google Scholar (describing involvement of NGOs and other actors in campaign for the International Criminal Court); Korey, William, NGOS and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Curious Grapevine 318–23 (2001)Google Scholar (describing process leading up to establishment of ICTY).

127 See, e.g., Bohunka O. Goldstein, Implementation of International Humanitarian Law by Diplomacy, Official, and Non-governmental, in International Humanitarian Law, supra note 125, at 161, 176-77 (describing International Campaign to Ban Landmines (launched by sixteen NGOs) and NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court); Meron, Theodor, The Humanization of Humanitarian Law, 94 AJIL 239, 243 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (describing events leading to changes in IHL); Veuthey, supra note 118.

128 Aug. 22, 1864, reprinted in The Laws of Armed Conflicts 279 (Dietrich Schindler & Jiri Toman eds., 3d rev. ed. 1988); see, e.g., Greenwood, Christopher J., Historical Development and Legal Basis, in The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law 15, 22 (Fleck, Dieter ed., 2d ed. 2008)Google Scholar (briefly describing Dunant’s involvement with IHL); Caroline Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross (1999).

129 Bugnion, François, The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Development of International Humanitarian Law, 5 Chi. J. Int’l L. 191, 191 (2004)Google Scholar (“Notwithstanding its private-initiative origins, the International Committee of the Red Cross…has been the main driving force behind the development of international humanitarian law for 140 years.”); Finnemore, supra note 27 (exploring the role of the ICRC in establishing and codifying the principles in the Geneva Conventions); Ratner, supra note 39.

130 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, Sept. 18, 1997, 19 ILM 1530 (1997). Richard Price shows how international civil society, in the form of the global coalition against the use of land mines, successfully reframed the issue of land mines from a military to a humanitarian issue and thereby changed the norms and behavior of the vast majority of the world’s states, which signed an international convention to ban the use of antipersonnel mines in 1997. Price, Richard, Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines, 52 Int’l Org. 613 (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The treaty, which entered into force on March 1, 1999, has 157 parties as of November 29, 2011. See http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=Treaty&mtdsg_no=XXVI-5&chapter=26&lang=en.

131 Hagan, John, Justice in the Balkans: Prosecuting War Criminals in the Hague Tribunal 93–131 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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134 Langer, supra note 34.

135 Kontorovich & Art, supra note 34.

136 Karstedt, Susanne, Coming to Terms with the Past in Germany After 1945 and 1989: Public Judgments on Procedures and Justice, 20 Law & Pol’y 15 (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

137 See, for example, studies of more recent intrastate conflicts, such as My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity (Eric Stover & Harvey M. Weinstein eds., 2004) (finding that “international or local trials may have little relevance to reconciliation in post-war countries,” so that “coordinated multi-systemic strategies must be implemented if social repair is to occur”); Fletcher, Laurel & Weinstein, Harvey, Violence and Social Repair: Rethinking the Contribution of Justice to Reconciliation, 24 Hum Rts. Q. 573 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (building from an interview-based study of Bosnians and arguing that for any society to reconstitute in a peaceful fashion, alternative interventions have to be implemented together with war crimes trials); Meernik, James, Justice and Peace? How the International Criminal Tribunal Affects Societal Peace in Bosnia, 42 J. Peace Res. 271 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (finding that the ICTY had only a limited effect on improving relations among Bosnia’s ethnic groups); and Mendeloff, David, Trauma and Vengeance: Assessing the Psychological and Emotional Effects of Post-conflict Justice, 31 Hum. Rts. Q. 592 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (surveying the scant empirical evidence on transnational justice and finding little support for the proposition that truth telling harms individuals or that it satisfies victims’ need for justice).

138 Goldsmith, Jack & Krasner, Stephen D., The Limits of Idealism, 132 Daedalus 47 (2003)Google Scholar.

139 Snyder, Jack & Vinjamuri, Leslie, Trials and Errors: Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice, 28 Int’l Security 5 (2003-04)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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141 Sikkink, Kathryn & Walling, Carrie B., The Impact of Human Rights Trials in Latin America, 44 J. Peace Res. 427 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Kim, Hunjoon & Sikkink, Kathryn, Explaining the Deterrence Effect of Human Rights Prosecutions for Transitional Countries, 54 Int’l Stud. Q. 939 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (examining one hundred transitional states during the period 1980-2004, and finding that “countries with human rights trials after transition have better human rights practices than countries without trials”).

142 Meernik, James & King, Kimi, The Sentencing Determinants of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: An Empirical and Doctrinal Analysis, 16 Leiden J. Int’l L. 717 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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146 See also Oskar Thorns, James Ron & Roland Paris, Does Transitional Justice Work? Perspectives from Empirical Social Science (2008) (unpublished manuscript) (providing a useful overview of the empirical debates) (on file with authors).

147 Braithwaite, John & Drahos, Peter, Global Business Regulation 217 (2000)Google Scholar.

148 See Bagwell, Kyle & Staiger, Robert, The Economics of the World Trading System 3 (2002)Google Scholar; Broda, Christain, Limao, Nuno & Weinstein, David, Optimal Tariffs and Market Power: The Evidence, 98 Am. Econ. Rev. 2032 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (using new empirical data and techniques to provide evidence supportive of the terms-of-trade theory). Giovanni Maggi and Andrés Rodríguez-Clare provide a complementary theory within economics, according to which governments are motivated to sign trade agreements by the desire to make credible commitments in relation to domestic industrial lobbies. Maggi, Giovanni & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, A Political-Economy Theory of Trade Agreements, 97 Am. Econ. Rev. 1374 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (predicting “that trade liberalization is deeper when capital is more mobile across sectors, and when governments are more politically motivated”); see also Mansfield, Edward & Reinhardt, Eric, International Institutions and the Volatility of lnternational Trade, 62 Int’l Org. 621 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (finding that joining international trade institutions reduces trade volatility and thus increases predictability and economic stability for both states and economic actors).

149 Steinberg, supra note 9.

150 Id.

151 Cf. Braithwaite & Drahos, supra note 147, at 79-80; Chimni, B. S., The World Trade Organization, Democracy and Development: A View From the South, 40 J. World Trade 5, 5 (2006)Google Scholar (“[T]he creation of WTO, its rules and organization, is the work of powerful social forces and states. It has emerged as a key institution to sustain the global capitalist order to the advantage of an emerging transnational capitalist class (TCC) whose interests are articulated by powerful states.”).

152 Shaffer, Gregory, Power, Governance, and the WTO: A Comparative Institutional Approach, in Power in Global Governance 130 (Bamett, Michael & Duvall, Raymond eds., 2005)Google Scholar.

153 Henrik Horn and Petros Mavroidis provide an assessment of much of the quantitative work from law and economics to date. Henrik Horn & Petros Mavroidis, A Survey of the Literature on the WTO Dispute Settlement System (Centre for Economic Policy Research, Discussion Paper No. 6020, 2007).

154 We address elsewhere studies on the negotiation of WTO rules. See Ginsburg & Shaffer, supra note 69.

155 Henrik Horn, Petros Mavroidis & Häkan Nordstrom, Is the Use of the WTO Dispute Settlement System Biased? (Centre for Economic Policy Research, Economic Research and Analysis Division, Discussion Paper No. 2340, 1999).

156 Joseph Francois, Henrik Horn & Niklas Kaunitz, Trading Profiles and Developing Country Participation in the WTO Dispute Settlement System (International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Issue Paper No. 6, 2008).

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168 Robert Hudec, Enforcing International Trade Law: The Evolution of the Modern Gatt Legal System (1993).

169 Busch, Marc & Reinhardt, Eric, Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Early Settlement in GATT/WTO Disputes, 24 Fordham Int’l L. J. 158 (2000)Google Scholar.

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171 See, e.g., Alvarez, José E., The Return of the State, 20 Minn. J. Int’l L. 223, 237–38 (2011)Google Scholar (discussing changes in model BITs).

172 Guzman, Andrew, Why LDCs Sign Treaties That Hurt Them: Explaining the Popularity of Bilateral Investment Treaties, 38 Va. J. Int’l L. 639 (1998)Google Scholar.

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176 See also Gus Van Harten, Reply, 2010-2011 Y.B. Int’l Investment L & Pol. (forthcoming) (replying to Susan Franck, Calvin Garbin & Jenna Perkins, Response: Through the Looking Glass: Understanding Social Science Norms for Analyzing International Investment Law, in same volume).

177 Dezalay & Garth, supra note 71.

178 Burke-White, William W., The Argentine Financial Crisis: State Liability Under BITs and the Legitimacy of the ICSID System, in The Backlash Against Investment Arbitration: Perceptions and Reality 407 (Waibel, Michael, Kaushal, Asha, Liz Chung, Kyo-Hwa & Balchin, Claire eds., 2010)Google Scholar (arguing that the recent decisions involving the U.S.-Argentine BIT threaten the legitimacy of the investor-state arbitration system); Burke-White, William W. & von Staden, Andreas, Private Litigation in a Public Law Sphere: The Standard of Review in Investor-State Arbitrations, 35 Yale J. Int’l L. 283, 285 (2010)Google Scholar (“the perceived legitimacy of investor-state arbitration has come under threat in recent years in the eyes of some states” (footnote omitted)).

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180 Id.

181 Cf. Ginsburg, Tom, International Substitutes for Domestic Institutions: Bilateral Investment Treaties and Governance, 25 Int’l Rev. L. & Econ. 107 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (finding little improvement in institutional quality after entering into a BIT, suggesting that international commitment devices can substitute for, rather than complement, domestic institutions); Tobin, Jennifer & Rose-Ackerman, Susan, Do BITs Benefit Developing Countries?, in The Future of Investment Arbitration (Alford, Roger P. & Rogers, Catherine eds., 2009)Google Scholar (finding that BITs serve as complements).

182 e.g., Tobin & Rose-Ackerman, supra note 181; cf. Rashmi Banga, Impact of Government Policies and Investment Agreements on FDI Inflows (Indian Council for Research on International Economic, Working Paper No. 116, 2003) (positive effect); M. Busse, J. Koeniger & P. Nunnenkamp, FDI Promotion Through Bilateral Investment Treaties: More Than a BIT? (Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Working Paper No. 1403, 2008) (positive effect); Büthe, Tim & Milner, Helen V., The Politics of Foreign Direct Investment into Developing Countries: Increasing FDI Through International Trade Agreements?, 52 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 741 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (positive effect); Gallagher, K. P. & Birch, M. B. I., Do Investment Agreements Attract Investment? Evidence from Latin America, 7 J. World Inv. & Trade 961 (2006)Google Scholar (no increase in U.S. investment); Mary Hallward-Driemeier, Do Bilateral Investment Treaties Attract Foreign Direct Investment? (World Bank Policy Research, Working Paper No. 3121, 2003) (no effect); Neumayer, Eric & Spess, Laura, Do Bilateral Investment Treaties Increase Foreign Direct Investment to Developing Countries?, 33 World Dev. 1567 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (positive effect); Salacuse, Jeswald W. & Sullivan, Nicholas P., Do BITS Really Work?: An Evaluation of Bilateral Investment Treaties and Their Grand Bargain, 46 Harv. Int’l L.J. 67 (2005)Google Scholar (positive effect); Tobin & Rose-Ackerman, supra note 181; Yackee, supra note 179 (no effect of strong BIT). Each of these studies uses a slightly different approach.

183 Büthe & Milner, supra note 182.

184 Büthe, Tim & Milner, Helen V., Bilateral Investment Treaties and Foreign Direct Investment: A Political Analysis, in The Effect of Treaties on Foreign Direct Investment: Bilateral Investment Treaties, Double Taxation Treaties, and Investment Flows (Sauvant, Karl & Sachs, Lisa eds., 2009)Google Scholar.

185 Trail Smelter (U.S. v. Can.),3 R.I.A.A. 1905 (1941). For an excellent overview of international environmental law, see Bodansky, supra note 38.

186 See, e.g., Institutions for the Earth: Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection (Robert Keohane, Peter Haas & Marc Levy eds., 1993) (case studies of seven international environmental problems); Polar Politics: Creating International Environmental Regimes (Oran Young & Gail Osherenko eds., 1993) (building from five case studies on the formation of environmental regimes for the Arctic to test hypotheses regarding regime formation); The Implementation and Effectiveness of International Environmental Commitments (David Victor, Kal Raustiala & Eugene B. Skolnikoff eds., 1998) (fourteen case studies covering eight areas); Edward Miles, Arild Underdal, Steinar Andresen, Jorgen Wettestad, Jon Birger Skjaerseth & Elaine M. Carlin, Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory With Evidence (2002) (reviewing the effectiveness of fourteen regimes as a function of the character of the problem and the problem-solving capacity to address it; combining qualitative and quantitative analysis; and tracing the incremental stages of the regimes’ formation, implementation, and impact); Ronald B. Mitchell, Intentional Oil Pollution at Sea (1994); R. Michael M’Gonigle & Mark W. Zacher, Pollution, Politics, And International Law: Tankers at Sea (1979).

187 Braithwaite & Drahos, supra note 147, at 618-20; see also Mitchell, Ronald B., International Environmental Agreements: A Survey of Their Features, Formation, and Effects, 28 Ann. Rev. Env’t & Res. 429 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

188 See, e.g., Paul Wapner, Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics (1996); Keck & Sikkink, supra note 104.

189 Sept. 16,1987, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100-10(1987), 1522 Unts 3; see Penelope Canan & Nancy Reichman, Ozone Connections: Expert Networks in Global Environmental Governance (2001); see also Global Environmental Assessments: Information and Influence (Ronald B. Mitchell, William C. Clark, David W. Cash & Nancy M. Dickson eds., 2006); Haas, Peter, Banning Chlorofluorocarbons: Epistemic Community Efforts to Protect Stratospheric Ozone, 46 Int’l Org. 187 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

190 See, e.g., Wapner, supra note 188.

191 See, e.g., Abbott & Snidal, supra note 59; Meidinger, Errol, The Administrative Law of Global Private-Public Regulation: The Case of Forestry, 17 Eur. J. Int’l L. 47 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cashore et al., supra note 59.

192 Civil society groups, moreover, also divide on environmental issues, as North-and South-based NGOs often disagree on the appropriate approaches for addressing environmental problems at the international level, particularly regarding the legitimacy of unilateral trade measures imposed by large states—a point that is often elided by normatively oriented legal scholars. See Mayer, Judith, Environmental Organizing in Indonesia: The Search for a Newer Order, in Lipshutz, Ronald & Mayer, Judith, Global Civil Society and Global Environmental Governance 169 (1996)Google Scholar; Shaffer, Gregory, The World Trade Organization Under Challenge: Democracy and the Law and Politics of the WTO’s Treatment of Trade and Environment Matters, 25 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 1, 68–74 (2001)Google Scholar (building from interviews and systematic review of minutes of WTO committee meetings).

193 Helmut Breitmeier, Oran Young & Michael Zurn, Analyzing International Environmental Regimes: From Case Study to Database (2006); see also International Environmental Agreements Database, http://iea.uoregon.edu.

194 Degarmo, supra note 56.

195 Mitchell, Ronald, International Politics and the Environment 148 (2009)Google Scholar; Miles et al., supra note 186, at 5-7.

196 Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords (Edith Brown Weiss & Harold K. Jacobson eds., 1998); Miles et al., supra note 186; Oran Young, Compliance and Public Authority (1979); Oran Young, The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes: Causal Connections and Behavioral Mechanisms (1999); Bernauer, Thomas, The Effect of International Environmental Institutions: How We Might Learn More, 49 Int’l Org. 351 (1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

197 Engaging Countries, supra note 196.

198 Chayes & Chayes, supra note 7.

199 The Implementation and Effectiveness of International Environmental Commitments, supra note 186.

200 See, in particular, Miles et al., supra note 186.

201 Downs, George W., Danish, Kyle W. & Barsoom, Peter N., The Transformational Model of International Regime Design: Triumph of Hope or Experience?, 38 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 465 (2000)Google Scholar.

202 Mitchell, Ronald, Regime Design Matters: Intentional Oil Pollution and Treaty Compliance, 48 Int’l Org. 425 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

203 See discussion in Braithwaite & Drahos, supra note 147, at 618.

204 Prakash, Aseem & Potoski, Matthew, Racing to the Bottom? Trade, Environmental Governance, and ISO 14001, 50 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 350 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (drawing on a panel study of 108 states over seven years). For interesting empirical work on industry self-regulation, see Lenox, Michael, The Prospects for Industry Self-Regulation of Environmental Externalities, in Making Global Regulation Effective: What Role for Self-Regulation? (Woods, N. ed., 2008).Google Scholar

205 We also address the use of mechanisms in Ginsburg & Shaffer, supra note 69. In addition, we cover regulatory standard setting, where the mechanism of modeling is again important. See also Braithwaite & Drahos, supra note 147, at 532-49; Halliday & Osinsky, supra note 23.

206 See, e.g., Simmons, supra note 1, pt. III.A, III.B; Hathaway, supra note 95; Kim & Sikkink, supra note 141.

207 See, e.g., Merry, supra note 28; Shaffer, supra note 59.

208 Merton, supra note 3, at 84.

209 Greif, supra note 3, at 308, 451.

210 North, Douglass, Understanding the Process of Economic Change 5 (2005)Google Scholar.

211 Id. at 20.

212 Goldsmith & Posner, supra note 20.

213 One of the first to observe this point was John Stuart Mill. See John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, bk. III, ch. 4 (1843).