International relations are full of appeals to and claims about international law. From intellectual property, to human rights, to environment, to investment, to health and safety, issues that have traditionally been almost exclusively within the purview of domestic lawmakers are now the subject of international legal obligations. Yet despite the importance of international law, there are no well-developed set of theories on the ways in which international law impacts domestic decision makers. Filling a conspicuous gap in the legal literature, Andrew T. Guzman''s How International Law Works develops a coherent theory of international law and applies that theory to the primary sources of law, treaties, customary international law, and soft law. Starting where most non-specialists start, Guzman looks at how a legal system without enforcement tools can succeed. If international law is not enforced through coercive tools, how is it enforced at all? And why would states comply with it? Supporting the traditional international law view that international law matters and affects state behavior, Guzman offers a theory of international law that assumes states behave rationally and selfishly. The author argues that at the heart of compliance with international law is the basic fact that a failure to live up to legal obligations today will impact a country''s ability to extract concessions for legal promises in the future. Under this reputational model, the violation of international law generates a costly loss of reputation and the threat of this loss provides an incentive to comply. A reputational theory suggests when and where international law is likely to be effective and ways to maximize its ability to advance the goal of international cooperation. Understanding international law in a world of rational states helps us to understand when we can look to international law to resolve problems, and when we must accept that we live in an anarchic world and must leave some issues to politics.
Industry Reviews
"Engaging and enterprising...Guzman presents a highly engaging and compelling theory of the forces behind international law...the book is very readable and offers a valuable perspective to anyone with an interest in international law or politics."--International Law and Politics
"At last! A comprehensive rational choice account of international law that demonstrates why international law does work rather than why it does not. Andrew Guzman demonstrates remarkable mastery of both the international law and the international relations literature, drawing them together in ways that put theoretical and empirical flesh on the bones of more traditional international lawyers' assertions. How International Law Works is an important
contribution to an ongoing debate and is bound to inspire further debates of its own."--Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, and former
President of the American Society of International Law
"Guzman's lucid account of international law from a rationalist-institutionalist perspective presents his core concepts of reputation, reciprocity and retaliation in inter-state relations with a clarity that is ideal for students of law and political science, while making excellent use of his expertise in international law and economics to generate research agendas and insights into existing practices and legal doctrines that will enrich specialist
international law scholarship even among those who take entirely different approaches to the field."--Benedict Kingsbury, Director, Institute for International Law and Justice NYU Law School
"This is a crisply written, theoretically rigorous, and lucid argument about why international treaties, rules of custom, and even 'soft law' are more than forms of 'cheap talk.' Guzman tells us, in the modern language of game theory, why policymakers care when they give their 'word.'"--Jose E. Alvarez, Hamilton Fish Professor of International Law & Diplomacy Columbia Law School
