A Theory of Expressive International Law

What is the pull of international society and how does it influence the willingness of States to enter into or comply with international law? Since Grotius first identified the concept that States seek esteem from the broader global community, its parameters have proven illusive. Nonetheless, the notion remains central to discussions of why States comply with international agreements. Understanding the reputational mechanism that impels State compliance is especially important to human rights treaties. Unlike other regimes, States that ratify and abide by the terms of these instruments receive neither reciprocal nor immediate benefits. Consequently, the desire for international esteem is the crucible by which compliance with human rights norms is determined. Professor Oona Hathaway has recently raised concerns about the efficacy of the reputational mechanism through an empirical study suggesting that ratification of human rights treaties may lead to increased human rights violations. While these findings have been challenged on both econometric and normative grounds, the need to understand whether Hathaway\u27s findings are simply the result of faulty measurement, improper regime design, or the inability of social forces to compel compliance is crucial to the development and success of the international human rights project. Answers to these questions begin with the development of more detailed models of the way social forces work. Not only will such models enable us to determine if social forces can be harnessed to better ensure compliance with human rights treaties, they also provide a framework that can help us better design human rights instruments

A Theory of Expressive International Law

What is the pull of international society and how does it influence the willingness of States to enter into or comply with international law? Since Grotius first identified the concept that States seek esteem from the broader global community, its parameters have proven illusive. Nonetheless, the notion remains central to discussions of why States comply with international agreements. Understanding the reputational mechanism that impels State compliance is especially important to human rights treaties. Unlike other regimes, States that ratify and abide by the terms of these instruments receive neither reciprocal nor immediate benefits. Consequently, the desire for international esteem is the crucible by which compliance with human rights norms is determined. Professor Oona Hathaway has recently raised concerns about the efficacy of the reputational mechanism through an empirical study suggesting that ratification of human rights treaties may lead to increased human rights violations. While these findings have been challenged on both econometric and normative grounds, the need to understand whether Hathaway\u27s findings are simply the result of faulty measurement, improper regime design, or the inability of social forces to compel compliance is crucial to the development and success of the international human rights project. Answers to these questions begin with the development of more detailed models of the way social forces work. Not only will such models enable us to determine if social forces can be harnessed to better ensure compliance with human rights treaties, they also provide a framework that can help us better design human rights instruments

Will the Directive 2014/17/EU on mortgage credit protect consumers in the next economic and/or financial crisis?

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)The Directive 2014/17/EU on mortgage credit agreements for real estate properties (Mortgage Credit Directive or MCD) reflects the classic tension in the European Union (EU) between the goal of attaining a European single mortgage credit market and the obligation to provide a high level of consumer protection. The classic approach of EU law to solve the tension is to find a balance between those aims through the interaction of public/private law. The article starts with a summary of the most important choices done by the legislator (exante information duties and responsible credit) and essential consumer right. It follows with a critical assessment of the MCD. The methodology of this study is both descriptive and analytical, law is considered not only a normative system but also a set of policy instruments influenced by other disciplines (ie. economics). The findings lead both to optimism and to criticism. Although the European harmonization represents a further step ahead in the area of financial services and consumer protection, some critical questions are still forgotten or left aside. The most important question remains unanswered, whether the MCD will protect consumers when the next economic/financial crisis inevitably arrives. The implications are clear: more research and better policy are needed.Peer Reviewe

Will the Directive 2014/17/EU on mortgage credit protect consumers in the next economic and/or financial crisis?

The Directive 2014/17/EU on mortgage credit agreements for real estate properties (Mortgage Credit Directive or MCD) reflects the classic tension in the European Union (EU) between the goal of attaining a European single mortgage credit market and the obligation to provide a high level of consumer protection. The classic approach of EU law to solve the tension is to find a balance between those aims through the interaction of public/private law. The article starts with a summary of the most important choices done by the legislator (exante information duties and responsible credit) and essential consumer right. It follows with a critical assessment of the MCD. The methodology of this study is both descriptive and analytical, law is considered not only a normative system but also a set of policy instruments influenced by other disciplines (ie. economics). The findings lead both to optimism and to criticism. Although the European harmonization represents a further step ahead in the area of financial services and consumer protection, some critical questions are still forgotten or left aside. The most important question remains unanswered, whether the MCD will protect consumers when the next economic/financial crisis inevitably arrives. The implications are clear: more research and better policy are needed

Commercial Military Actors and Civilian Victimization in Africa, Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, 1980–2011

Abstract The current international normative order strongly condemns strategies of civilian victimization, and actors engaging in atrocities face material, criminal, and reputational sanctions. The growth of the market for force has raised concerns about clients outsourcing atrocities to commercial military actors (CMAs), such as private military and security companies or mercenaries, and thereby circumventing accountability under international norms. This investigation explores whether interactions on the market for force are associated with an increase in the likelihood of violence against civilians. We argue that there is a variance in market interactions. While some market actors will comply with international norms, others will take advantage and circumvent normative restrictions. The crucial factor determining compliance and noncompliance are costs of norm violation, which vary across market actors. Those clients and CMAs with a higher exposure to sanctions, or an interest in the status quo of the normative order, are less likely to be associated with norm violations, and vice versa. We test our claims using a negative binomial regression and by drawing on new data from the Commercial Military Actor Dataset, which records contracting for force and force-related services. Overall, we found that there is a market segment where actors use market relations to circumvent international norms, yet mostly market interactions appear to comply with international norms.</jats:p

The Law and Economics of Contracts

This paper, which will appear as a chapter in the forthcoming Handbook of Law and Economics (A.M. Polinsky & S. Shavell, eds.), surveys major issues arising in the economic analysis of contract law. It begins with an introductory discussion of scope and methodology, and then addresses four topic areas that correspond to the major doctrinal divisions of the law of contracts. These areas include freedom of contract (i.e., the scope of private power to create binding obligations), formation of contracts (both the procedural mechanics of exchange, and rules that govern pre-contractual behavior), contract interpretation (what consequences follow when agreements are ambiguous or incomplete), and enforcement of contractual obligations. For each of these sections, we address the economic analysis of particular legal rules and institutions, and, where relevant, connections between legal arrangements and associated topics in microeconomic theory, including welfare economics and the theory of contracts

HISTORIC ORIGINS OF ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION IN ENGLAND

The process of the common law courts when resorted to by foreigners appears to have failed entirely to give redress. Arbitration and other treaties were tried without satisfaction. Finally, in 1337, Edward III found himself obliged to pay out of his own pocket for spoils committed upon Flemish, Genoese and Venetian merchants by his own subjects. This was no international gesture, for it was dictated by necessity, since the English monarch, engaged in a struggle with France, wished to retain the aid of his allies. It thus became urgent to suppress piracy, which was the plague of the Channel

The Politics and Practice of Individual Criminal Responsibility at the International Criminal Court

This interdisciplinary study examines the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a legal institution functioning within international politics by analysing the influence of the international legal norms concerning individual criminal responsibility on the outcomes of ICC prosecutions. Much of the international relations literature focuses on the opening of investigations and the selection of suspects at the ICC. Specifically, the ICC’s poor record of successful prosecutions – consisting of only five convictions for core international crimes as of 2021 – is often explained by pointing out that international criminal justice proceedings generally follow the political interests of states and elites, thus, reproducing global structural inequalities by prosecuting actors without powerful political backing. However, the outcomes of ICC trials and the process of assessing the criminal responsibility of those individuals standing trials have remained significantly underexamined in the international relations literature. To address this gap, this thesis examines the outcomes of ICC trials with respect to what I call the ‘politics’ of the legal field, namely, the promotion and contestations of different understandings of the law by various actors. Based on an analysis of over 200 legal documents, 330 academic publications, NGO articles and state statements, this thesis argues that the idea that international trials should apply the laws on criminal responsibility in a narrow and predictable fashion, regardless of the trial outcome, gained significant support among ICC judges and many legal experts outside the Court. From the perspective of ICC judges, the restrained approach to criminal responsibility serves the purpose to institute a stable international legal order. Thus, by combining insights from international relations and legal studies, this thesis contributes to the literature on international criminal justice, by elucidating and examining in detail an important contributing factor to trial outcomes at the Court, namely, the ideological battles taking place within the field of international criminal law.Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership with the University of Cambridg

COIN@AAMAS2015

COIN@AAMAS2015 is the nineteenth edition of the series and the fourteen papers included in these proceedings demonstrate the vitality of the community and will provide the grounds for a solid workshop program and what we expect will be a most enjoyable and enriching debate.Peer reviewe

Mass Atrocities and their Prevention

Counting conservatively, and ignoring physical injuries and mental trauma, data show about 100 million mass atrocity-related deaths since 1900. Occurring in war and in peacetime, and of enormous scale, severity, and brutality, they are geographically widespread, occur with surprising frequency, and can be long-lasting in their adverse effects on economic and human development, wellbeing, and wealth. As such, they are a major economic concern. This article synthesizes very diverse and widely dispersed theoretical and empirical literatures, addressing two gaps: a “mass atrocities gap” in the economics literature and an “economics gap” in mass atrocities scholarship. Our goals are, first, for noneconomists to learn how economic inquiry contributes to understanding the causes and conduct of mass atrocities and possibly to their mitigation and prevention and, second, to survey and synthesize for economists a broad sweep of literatures to serve as a common platform on which to base further work in this field