post midterm 2 Flashcards
Ftypes of international law (custom, treaty)
custom: where sovereigns recognize some practices as appropriate and correct
- decisions of dispute
- settlement panels/tribunals
- declarations of UN security council
why international law constrains
- shapes behavior of states
- even though states are not held to law and can do whatever they want to, they all observe the principles and obligations
- other states also hold them accountable to the laws
stages of treaty (signature, ratification)
- negotiation - decides what goes into it
- signature - sign the treaty
- ratification - making solemn pledge to abide by the treaty
- entry into force - becomes active
- ICC can’t do anything about cases prior to when the nation has entered the force - changes, amendments, protocols
Briand-Kellogg Pact 1928
- making war illegal as a solution for international controversies and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relation to one another
Locarno Agreement
- sought to secure the post-war territorial settlement and return normalizing relations with Germany and that they
counterfactual thinking
- way for testing cause and effect
- if you changed something, what would the outcome be
- what would state behavior be in the absence of a treaty
- why go through all the bother if it doesn’t matter
Leyla Sahin vs. Turkey
- Leyla sues University of Istanbul because they didn’t allow her to wear a headscarf
- suing under article 9: freedom of thought, conscience, and religion
- ECHR rules in favor of Turkey
- used same article because it says that the state has right to decide what is best and appropriate for the state
- states only agree with things that they have their best interests in
- same with international law and treaties
defensive alliance
- written promises to assist an ally militarily in the event of attack on the ally’s sovereignty or territorial entity
- NATO - attack on one is an attack on all
offensive alliance
- states pledge to join one another to attack another state
neutrality
- alliance member promises not to join a conflict between one or more alliance partners and a third party on the side of an ally’s adversary
- can still offer resources
nonagression
- must promise specifically to refrain from the use of force in relations with the alliance partner, to refrain from participating in any action against the alliance partner and/or to settle all disputes peacefully in relations with the alliance partner
- negotiate
consultation
- promises to consult with one or more alliance partners in the event of crises with the potential to become militarized
how alliances affect the bargaining model of war
- capability aggregation: allows you to multiply your military with the thelp of other countries rather than spending money
- states with alliances are more likely to win in a bargain because the state without an ally is more likely to settle
- for states with alliances, it is less costly to go to war because they can spread the costs evenly
free rider problem
- collective good = collective security
- able to get without making any significant contributions yourself
- US spending by far the most on defense in NATO, while in comparison, other countries are not spending the same percentage of GDP putting the larger share of the burden on the US and overall taking advantage of it
entrapment and chain ganging
- alliances works too well - tightens bonds such that demanders feel they can pull over adversaries
- pull ally into war
abandonment vs. entrapment
- sabrosky states comply 25% of the time
- balancing act - alliance credibility vs. straightjacket
- when you form an alliance, their problems become your problems
- not all states follow through with their agreements
- abandonment has decreased in recent decades because the state’s reputations have become more important and issue-linkage affects trade and credibility
- whatever lessons abandonment increases risk of entrapment and vice versa
issue linkage
- allies ten to coordinate cooperational relations in other areas as well- free trade, alliance that precedes trade agreement
- lucrative source of trade potentially on the line
- makes more expensive/costly to reject ally
- simultaneous discussion of two or more issues for joint settlement- is a bargaining tactic that 1) increases the probability of states reaching a negotiated agreement and 2) motivates state to remain committed
- ex: current effort to get aid to Ukraine, Israel, and money for border security example of failing issue linkage
tying hands
- costlier for them to remain on those promises
- berlin brigade
moral hazard
- actors might take riskier actions because other parties bear the costs of those risks
excludable
can other actors be prevented from consuming the good
rival
- does one actor’s consumption of the good diminish the amount available to others
private goods
- excludable and rival
problem- pollution
ex: hamburgers, clothing
public goods
- non-excludable and non-rival
- problem: individual incentives to free-ride
- results in the under provision of the good, greater environmental harm
- clean air, national defense
- classic prisoner’s dilemma logic: individual incentives to defect (free ride)
common pool resources
- non-excludable but rival in consumption
- problem: over-exploitation of many natural resources
- whales, fish, wildlife
does international law matter
- no
- has minimal influence on state’s behavior bc states do not allow their core interests to be threatened
- states only make agreements to what they would have done anyways
- most treaties require states to make only modest differences to what they would have
yes - constrains gov
- why would states bother doing it if its meaningless, do it because it works
- forms what is acceptable, counterfactual interference
why desire to comply with law
- audience costs: costlier for a gov to go back on a legal promise than a verbal promise
- clarity amidst anarchy: better sense of what is a violation
- reciprocity - to make sure no one does anything crazy, avoid “beggar-thy-neighbor”
externalities
- when a decision creates costs or benefits for actors other than the actor making the decision
- means too much of good (or here bad) will be produced
- ex: CO2 emissions from building a house, water pollution from growing flowers
- challenge: internalizing externalities
- way to internalize: cap and trade
- gov sets a cap on the emissions and give firms permits and credits for emissions allowed to be produced
pigovian tax
- set to reflect social costs of externalities
- tax assessed against private individuals or businesses for engaging in activities that create adverse side effects for society
- tobacco, sugar, carbon
international whaling commission and moratorium
- conference made up of states who were interested in whaling and they were concerned about the depleting number of whales
- set the quota too high because they were self-interested
- continued to overfish and population was depleting
- EU encouraged countries to join even if they didn’t have to
- found a loophole that even land locked countries could do so - by doing so they had the majority to set a moratorium
- put a 5 year ban on whaling
- prevents tragedy of the commons through moratorium, temporary prohibition
sources of environmental cooperation and examples
- number and relative size of actors:
- smaller number of actors = cooperation easier; (+) acid rain agreements - privileged groups:
- composed of one, or a few, actors who receive sufficient benefits themselves from the public good to be willing to supply it iteration and issue linkage
- groups that interact repeatedly (iteration) or on other issues (linkage) more successful
ex: US and Canada: trade partners, military allies, able to cooperate on acid rain and air quality - issue linkage:
- joint products (linkage) - positive environmental externalities from private decisions
- public good as by product of efforts to obtain private good
- less free-riding since private benefits increase along with public good institutions
soft law/hard law
- role of institutions is to set standards of behavior, verify compliance and reduce the costs of joint decision making
- when setting standards, starts out as non-binding norms “soft laws”
- some become “hard laws”- formal obligations, monitoring mechanisms
migrant
- generic term for person staying outside their country of origin
- potentially for various reasons
- no commonly accepted legal definition
- often used interchangeably, but important legal/social implication
refugee
- person who has fled their own country because at risk of serious human rights violations or persecutions
- afforded protections under international and some domestic laws
asylum seeker
- someone who has fled their country because of these risks, but awaiting decision on their claim to be recognized as refugee
internally displaced person
- fled their homes out of fear for their safety, but have not crossed an international border
patterns in european and syrian refugee crisis
main push factors in migration
- conflict, repression, environmental stress and scarcity, lack of economic opportunities
main pull factors in migration
- political and security stability, economic opportunity, preexisting networks
- immigration law and policy
- incentives vs. criminilization, enforcement
Heckscher-Ohlin theory and patterns over migration
- land, capital, labor
- HO accounts for some broad trends, but politics always mattered
- vast push-pull are political not economic
politics of immigration attitudes
- some support for economic motives, generally strongest predictors are ideological
- competition for recruiting high-skilled workers
- militarization and securitiztion of immigration
- uneven distributional consequences
vaccine nationalism and diplomacy
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- cooperating over producing at adequate amounts and distributing vaccines to where they would do the most good (how define this) more challenging