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Legitimacy in the International System
532
Citations
0
References
1988
Year
Half-empty GlassInternational RegulationLawInternational CrimesInternational Constitutional LawSocial SciencesPrivate International LawInternational RuleInternational ManagementGlobal JusticeInternational RelationsSystemic RulesInternational Relation TheoryInternational SystemInternational LawHuman Rights LawWorld PoliticsInternational Humanitarian LawPublic International LawInternational Legal StudiesGlobal PoliticsInternational OrganizationPolitical ScienceInternational Institutions
International law is largely respected by states despite its voluntary nature and minimal coercive power, prompting questions about how normative compliance is sustained in the international system. The study seeks to explain this paradox by developing a theory of voluntary normative compliance that could inform strategies to strengthen global order.
The surprising thing about international law is that nations ever obey its strictures or carry out its mandates. This observation is made not to register optimism that the half-empty glass is also half full, but to draw attention to a pregnant phenomenon: that most states observe systemic rules much of the time in their relations with other states. That they should do so is much more interesting than, say, the fact that most citizens usually obey their nation’s laws, because the international system is organized in a voluntarist fashion, supported by so little coercive authority. This unenforced rule system can obligate states to profess, if not always to manifest, a significant level of day-to-day compliance even, at times, when that is not in their short-term self-interest. The element of paradox attracts our attention and challenges us to investigate it, perhaps in the hope of discovering a theory that can illuminate more generally the occurrence of voluntary normative compliance and even yield a prescription for enhancing aspects of world order.