The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements - Hardcover

In their first joint publication, Harvard law professor Abram Chayes and his wife, former undersecretary of the Air Force and Harvard faculty member Antonia Handler Chayes, have produced a valuable contribution to the theory and practice of international regimes...Their book, a readable synthesis of international law and political science, is a valiant and coordinated attempt to answer Kenneth Oye's question: 'If international relations can approximate both a Hobbesian state of nature and Lockean...society, why does cooperation emerge in some cases and not in others?...One of the many strengths of this book is an analytical style that is at once legalistic (emphasizing the binding nature of obligations) and political (recognizing the influence of power relationships, economic expediency, and municipal politics). Such an approach is clearly an attempt to bridge the gap between international relations scholars and international lawyers, as well as between theoreticians and policymakers. The authors' understanding is as broad as it is deep. -- Noah Rubins "The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs"

In an increasingly complex and interdependent world, states resort to a bewildering array of regulatory agreements to deal with problems as disparate as climate change, nuclear proliferation, international trade, satellite communications, species destruction and intellectual property. In such a system, there must be some means of ensuring reasonably reliable performance of treaty obligations. The standard approach to this problem, by academics and politicians alike, is a search for treaties with "teeth" - military or economic sanctions to deter and punish violation. "The New Sovereignty" argues that this approach is misconceived. Cases of coercive enforcement are rare, and sanctions are too costly and difficult to mobilize to be a reliable enforcement tool. As an alternative to this "enforcement" model, the authors propose a "managerial" model of treaty compliance. It relies on the elaboration and application of treaty norms in a continuing dialogue between the parties - international officials and nongovernmental organizations - that generates pressure to resolve problems of noncompliance. In the process, the norms and practices of the regime themselves evolve and develop. The authors take a broad look at treaties in many different areas: arms control, human rights, labour, the environment, monetary policy, and trade. The extraordinary wealth of examples includes the Iran airbus shootdown, Libya's suit against Great Britain and the United States in the Lockerbie case, the war in Bosnia, and Iraq after the Gulf War. The authors conclude that sovereignty - the status of a recognized actor in the international system - requires membership in good standing in the organizations and regimes through which the world manages its common affairs. This requirement turns out to be the major pressure for compliance with treaty obligations. This book should be a valuable resource and casebook for scholars, policymakers, international public servants, lawyers and corporate executives.