Unlike many core human rights treaties, the Statelessness Conventions are among the most poorly ratified in the world. Orthodox scholarship on human rights treaties primarily focuses on post-ratification implementation and their impact on state conduct. While it is important to examine post-ratification compliance, understanding why states agree to ratify human rights treaties is as crucial. Ratification nudges states towards better human rights practices and serves as a gateway for the implementation of international norms. This chapter addresses this gap in scholarship by examining the ratification status of the Statelessness Conventions and the ratification process of the 1954 Statelessness Convention, together with key actors and their influence, by the Philippines, Southeast Asia’s first State Party to the treaty, and its subsequent accession to the 1961 Reduction of Statelessness Convention. Both rationalist and non-rationalist explanations account for ratifications. While rational explanations push states to ratify treaties, socializing liberal and constructivist-oriented explanations, for example, also drive states to commit to treaties. Multi-dimensional and multi-perspectival orientations should therefore inform how and why ratification or accession campaigns should be undertaken, and perhaps, even how treaties themselves should be designed. This analysis serves as a basis for broader theoretical reflections on persuading states to ratify human rights treaties.

Chapter 2 explains how belligerent reprisals have come to be interpreted as tools to induce compliance with the laws of armed conflict. It does so by highlighting three cumulative processes. First, it looks at the role that post–World War II tribunals, the ICTY and the ICRC have played in stressing the procedural elements of belligerent reprisals, emphasizing the highly formalized set of steps to be taken before the adoption of the measure while downplaying the retaliatory act itself. Then, it claims that the main thrust of this proceduralization lies in the creation of a regulatory framework that attributes a specific legal meaning to the retaliatory conduct and, by so doing, allows for an assimilation of belligerent reprisals with the notion of countermeasures. In turn, this analogy leads to the attribution to belligerent reprisals of a sanctioning character that protects the primary norm from the risk of persistent non-compliance. The outcome of these three processes is the attribution to belligerent reprisals of a chiefly coercive purpose, interested in inducing compliance with the laws of armed conflict and markedly influenced by the enforcement paradigm.

The Conclusion draws on the findings of the book to analyse the main implications of a reciprocity-based understanding of belligerent reprisals. First, it distinguishes this formalization of belligerent reprisals from earlier theories stressing the law-making function of the measure. Then, it accounts for the continued relevance of belligerent reprisals even at a time when mechanisms monitoring and enforcing compliance with the laws of armed conflict gain momentum. Finally, it explains how a reciprocity-based interpretation of belligerent reprisals would affect follow-up reform of the mechanism – be it in the sense of fine-tuning its regulation, or in the sense of disposing of it altogether.

In the last ten years, secondary sanctions have played an important role for European regulators as well as for compliance officers working for economic operators. Even though such European practitioners are looking for guidance and experience from their interlocutors from the other side of the Atlantic, including from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, secondary sanctions do not act in the leading role but are one of many risk factors to be considered by economic operators. Instead, prohibitive policies of European economic operators, including financial institutions, against certain governments, such as Iran and to a lesser degree Russia, are mostly based on risks unrelated to secondary sanctions. On this premise, the chapter will briefly describe the relevant regulatory framework and will then explain how the regulations are operationally implemented in international financial institutions. In doing this, the chapter will also touch on practical challenges for sanctions compliance officers, such as extraterritoriality and the EU Blocking Regulation.

The aim of this conceptual chapter is to define international secondary sanctions and to address the contemporary legal challenges they raise. It proposes to explain such complex legal mechanisms, to overcome the apparent definitional wanderings in their regard, and to identify concrete keys to tackle the legal problems encountered by public and private practitioners. To this end, the analysis begins with an explanation of the core concepts underlying secondary sanctions and focuses on the aim of (extraterritorial) secondary sanctions to extend their scope, what the author calls ‘the reach dilemma’. The unilateral and extraterritorial mechanics of secondary sanctions are then illustrated by three original figures, allowing the reader to grasp the complexity of the different levers involved. The study then addresses the additional difficulty arising from the apparent plurality of definitions of secondary sanctions and proposes an explanatory key enabling to retain only one working definition of secondary sanctions stricto sensu. Finally, the chapter goes on with the identification of the main difficulties currently facing public and private legal practices in this field and presents legal solutions that offer avenues for resolution, in the short, medium and long term.

This chapter summarizes the findings from our study, based on the meta-analysis averaging across the effects from the six experiments. We found that increases in locally appropriate community policing practices led to no improvements in citizen–police trust, no greater citizen cooperation with the police, and no reduction in crime. Despite a strong commitment from leadership in each context at the outset, the police implemented the interventions unevenly and incompletely. Although citizens reported more frequent and robust exposure to the police in places where community policing was implemented, we have limited evidence of police action in response to citizen reports.

In Chapter 4, we conduct an in-depth exploration of norms at both the individual and group levels. We discuss how they develop, how they are classified, and the factors that encourage their acceptance by group members. We also discuss the collusive behavior and deviancy that can occur in groups and their connection to group norms.

International human rights as a legal regime is founded on the premise that the State is both the violator and the protector of the same set of rights. Universal positivism is the effort to eliminate the internal contradiction embedded within the heart of human rights law. This is done by creating international legal regimes that break through the sovereign veil of States for the benefit of the individuals within the States. This is a benevolent authoritarian move since international human rights treaties cannot be adjusted or addressed by the democratic will of its rights-holding subjects. Universal positivism’s focus on the State as the object of suspicion obscures the intrinsic dependency on the State for the actualizations of said rights, and how a democratic legal order will protect the individuals within the State in ways that international human rights cannot.

Field experiments have a long tradition in some areas of the social and behavioral sciences and have become increasingly popular in sociology. Field experiments are staged in "natural" research settings where individuals usually interact in everyday life and regularly complete the task under investigation. The implementation in the field is the core feature distinguishing the approach from laboratory experiments. It is also one of the major reasons why researchers use field experiments; they allow incorporating social context, investigating subjects under "natural" conditions, and collecting unobtrusive measures of behavior. However, these advantages of field experiments come at the price of reduced control. In contrast to the controlled setting of the laboratory, many factors can influence the outcome but are not under the experimenter’s control and are often hard to measure in the field. Using field experiments on the broken windows theory, the strengths and potential pitfalls of experimenting in the field are illustrated. The chapter also covers the nascent area of digital field experiments, which share key features with other types of experiments but offer exciting new ways to study social behavior by enabling the collection large-scale data with fine-grained and unobtrusive behavioral measures at relatively low variable costs.

In the evolving landscape of technological discourse, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have risen as pivotal instruments, notably within gaming and digital art. However, their implications are broader, touching upon real-world applications such as land titles and supply chain management. As the Web 3.0 architecture evolves, the role of NFTs in domain nomenclature and email addresses is increasingly significant. Yet, with the existence of alternate methods for these operations, a pertinent question emerges: Why opt for NFTs or blockchain-based solutions? Despite uncertainties surrounding adoption, many early adopters are zealously securing addresses on these avant-garde networks. This chapter delves into the conditions and reasons for considering this nascent technology.

Chapter Three explores the views of former officials regarding compliance by states with international law. Almost all former officials believed that international law constrains state behavior, at least to some extent, and that states comply with international law much of the time. The top positive factors favoring compliance, as revealed by frequency counts, were reputational concerns; state interest in a stable legal and institutional system; reciprocity, or the prospect of retaliation; ethical considerations, including ethical values underlying international law rules and respect for the rule of law; idiosyncratic factors, including the history and culture of states; and benefits flowing from participation in specific regimes. The significant role of ethical factors gives a boost to normative theories about compliance. The role of systemic interests illustrates the benefits of a multilateral, institutional, and rule-based system. Among the factors militating against compliance, the dominant factor was state interest. Many former officials suggested that decisions about compliance involve a cost–benefit assessment, a consideration of many factors including international law. The chapter concludes by considering the former officials’ perceptions about the reasons that states outside of the United States take into consideration regarding compliance with international law.

Chapter Four focuses on US compliance with international law. The perception of former officials was that US compliance with international law was robust. When asked about the reasons that the United States complies or does not comply with international law, the former officials’ responses tracked many of the factors they listed for states in general. The chapter then explores the interplay between law and policy, exploring how policymakers balance these competing concerns. Former officials were clear that while international law was generally followed, it was not always dispositive. Legal issues were considered as one factor among a variety of factors, essentially involving a cost–benefit analysis. The salient considerations driving compliance or noncompliance, as revealed in the interviews, appeared to be the nature of the national interest or policy at stake; the nature and significance of the international legal rule involved ethical considerations; the views of allies; the ambiguity or precision of the legal obligation; and the weight of domestic political and bureaucratic concerns. The chapter next examines factors that may affect policymaker perceptions, including party affiliation, and concludes with a description of instances where the United States either bent international law or complied scrupulously.