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CIAO DATE: 9/5/2006
International Law for an Uncertain Environment
Barbara Koremenos
November 2003
Center for International Studies University of Southern California
Abstract
For the past twenty years, the theoretical literature on international cooperation has focused on overarching questions about whether cooperation is possible and how important it is. The seminal contributions of the 1980s increased our theoretical understanding of the possibility of cooperation. Yet we know empirically that cooperation is pervasive. Hundreds of multilateral agreements are signed each year. If we count bilateral agreements as well, the number jumps to thousands. This is not to say that cooperation is easy. In fact, given the challenges of successful cooperation, it is time for the theoretical literature to focus not on whether cooperation can occur at all, but on more focused questions regarding how the actual institutions of cooperation work and through what means they have their impact on state behavior.
Cooperative international relations are typically organized through agreements and the institutions they create. These agreements and institutions display a wide range of forms across different parties, issues, and circumstances. It is astonishing that after over fifty years of intense debate in international relations theory, much of which turns on the question of the value and function of international agreements, no one has systematically collected data on important dimensions of international agreements. This is especially puzzling given that such agreements have increased substantially since World War II. This paper is part of a research program that addresses both the theoretical and empirical gaps in the literature on international cooperation by investigating core questions of agreement and institutional design.
