How international law works: a rational choice theory

Abstract

States, therefore, have no innate preference for complying with international law, they are unaffected by the 'legitimacy' of a rule of law (Franck 1995), past consent to a rule is insufficient to ensure compliance, and there is no assumption that decision-makers have internalized a norm of compliance with international law (Koh, 1997).5 After noting that these assumptions are accepted in a wide range of (in fact, exclusively American) literature, Guzman remarks that, more importantly, the argument rests on the assumption that states are actually hostile to cooperation and will only engage in it when there are clear 'payoffs' (in rational choice terms).6 Guzman concludes his introductory chapter by considering alternative social theories of international law. Guzman's tolerant attitude is that, while it is obviously open for someone to adopt these approaches, they have no well-established predictive value, given the complexities of the internal workings of the state.8 Therefore, they do not serve his purpose, which is, in international law terms, the fairly progressive one of showing that international law will very frequently enjoy compliance by states (including the US as one more rational actor), notwithstanding the hiccups of such incidents as the US withdrawal from the Optional Protocol to the VCCR.