Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Regional trade agreements (RTAs) are considered single issue international institutions. As trade institutions, they prescribe rules for trade liberalization and economic development among member states. It is little known that their treaties include security commitments like alliance obligations, nuclear non-proliferation, small arms trade moratoriums and provisions for military forces that serve defense and peacekeeping functions. The purpose of this paper is to analyze patterns of RTA security commitments and conflict involving member state; discuss the nuances of coding multi-issue treaties and the database of global RTA security commitments that we have collected.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The paper examines the status as law of the rules of treaty interpretation set out in Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Initially, the paper examines the drafting history of the Convention, in an attempt to discern the understanding of those Articles held by the Special Rapporteur, The International Law Commission, and the adopting Convention. The paper then considers the application of the rules in the jurisprudence of four respected international tribunals: the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, and the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization. It then reconsiders the status of the rules in light of this jurisprudence. In a concluding section the paper considers the suitability and utility of an evaluation based on positivist conception of law, at least with regard to rules of this type.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The ratification process for international treaties has become increasingly politicized in advanced industrial democracies, but very few studies focus on this important dimension of international cooperation. This paper sets out to fill a gap in political science scholarship by investigating the role domestic political actors and conditions play in ratification outcomes. The thesis that I explore in this study is that the likelihood of ratification success is often a function of elite strategies for treaty ratification, regime type (which conditions executive-legislative relations), interest group pressure, and public opinion in the domestic political environment relative to international commitments. I employ the comparative case study method to explore eighteen cases of treaty ratification struggles in the past two decades, drawing on extensive field research, elite interviews, and archival work. The paper concludes with a survey of the significance of scope conditions for treaty success and derives lessons for policy-making and international relations theory.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Bilateral investment treaties guarantee legal rights for foreign investors. We explain the variation in the time passed between the signing and ratification of BITs by examining the effect of executive constraints and treaty embeddedness.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Treaties make the same requirements of all states, but they are often implemented in very different ways at the domestic level. This paper seeks to explain the why some states implement treaties fully and others implement weakly. Explaining the variation