Justifying Force:

International Law, Foreign-Policy Decision-Making, and the Use of Force 

Working Paper

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* Best Graduate Student Paper,

ISA West 2018

What is the role of international law in foreign-policy decision-making? In particular, why do leaders so often make international law justifications for foreign policy decisions? While there is a growing body of research highlighting the role of international law justifications in shaping domestic support, this paper argues that decision-makers care about international law as a way to justify their actions to international audiences, employing its unique rhetorical strengthens in the international realm to gain support or acquiescence for their policy decision. This paper draws on the theory of rhetorical coercion to develop an understanding of the role of international law in foreign-policy decision making. I hypothesize that states develop legal arguments, particularly arguments referencing specific legal standards, to justify their actions to international audiences. Two cases– the United Kingdom’s 1956 intervention in the Suez and the United States’ 1983 intervention in Grenada – are used to test these assumptions. Both cases support the theory: decision-makers utilize international law as a means of justifying their policy to international audiences, in contrast to many existing theories. Additionally, decision-makers appeared to have preferred legal arguments built on specific claims, in keeping with the theoretical predictions.

Legal Rhetoric, Human Rights, and the Universal Periodic Review

Working Paper

What is the language of effective human rights argumentation? When challenging a state’s human rights practices, actors can draw on a range of discursive options from the ethical and moral to the political and legal. Current research on human rights argumentations highlights the strategic use of rhetoric to create political outcomes largely on a case-by-case basis. However, little scholarship to date has applied quantitative methodologies to systematically analyze the use of law-based arguments, and their acceptance or rejection, in global human rights argumentation. This study uses data on all recommendations made at the first two cycles of the Universal Periodic Review, a United Nations mechanism by which all states are reviewed regularly on their human rights practices. Using an original coding of legal and nonlegal recommendations, I show that legal claims have the greatest likelihood of success, outperforming nonlegal arguments. Elite interviews are then used to determine how actors understand, employ, and interpret legal arguments. These findings deepen our understand of why actors employ legal rhetoric, how international legal arguments are understood in human rights, and the broader strategic uses of rhetoric in international law and international relations.

Who States Up for the ICC? Explaining State Responses to U.S. Sanction Threats, with M.P. Broach (UNC-Greensboro)

Working Paper

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On June 11, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order authorizing sanctions against International Criminal Court (ICC) officials and their families. This order directly followed the authorization by the ICC Appeals Chamber, in March 2020, of an investigation into the situation in Afghanistan, including alleged war crimes involving American forces. Within ten days of the announcement of the executive order, 22 ICC States Parties issued individual statements directly condemning the U.S. sanctions and/or expressing support for the Court. Then, on June 23, 2020, a group of 67 States Parties (including all 22 that had issued individual statements) released a collective statement affirming “unwavering support for the Court as an independent and impartial judicial institution.” Even so, this constituted just slightly over half of the Court’s 123 States Parties. Why did some ICC States Parties condemn the U.S. sanctions or otherwise express support for the Court while others did not? This paper explores this question by first documenting variation in the content, format, and timing of statements concerning U.S. sanctions. We then propose and test a series of hypotheses to explain this variation, focusing on factors such as susceptibility to U.S. pressure and domestic rule of law, inter alia. We find that domestic rule of law is the main factor driving states decision to speak out – outweighing material concerns and security dependence on the U.S., contributing to broader understandings about the motivations for – and roles of – public statements in international relations, as well as scholarship on the development of the ICC.

Subject or Skill? Teaching (and Learning) International Law in International Relations

Working Paper

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How should international law be taught in international relations graduate programs? Substantively, international law and international relations overlap on a range of topics and IR graduate students are often interested in studying - and analyzing - questions related to international law. However, time constraints mean that a student may be lucky to have a single semester-long course dedicated to international law. Given this tension between substantive interest and limited time, how should IL be taught in IR graduate programs? In contrast to traditional approaches that focus on the substantive areas of international law and its role as a variable in global politics, this paper argues for a skills-based approach focused on the skills needed to interpret international law and engaging with how IL is used and understood by practitioners. This may, in turn, allow IR scholars to engage more deeply with international law in their research, better equip scholars for long-term study, and allow for greater interdisciplinary engagement between the fields of law and international relations.

Constructing Compliance: Creating Legal Meaning in the 1949 Geneva Conventions

In preparation for ISA 2021

What is the role of international law in foreign-policy decision-making? In particular, why do leaders so often make international law justifications for foreign policy decisions? While there is a growing body of research highlighting the role of international law justifications in shaping domestic support, this paper argues that decision-makers care about international law as a way to justify their actions to international audiences, employing its unique rhetorical strengthens in the international realm to gain support or acquiescence for their policy decision. This paper draws on the theory of rhetorical coercion to develop an understanding of the role of international law in foreign-policy decision making. I hypothesize that states develop legal arguments, particularly arguments referencing specific legal standards, to justify their actions to international audiences. Two cases– the United Kingdom’s 1956 intervention in the Suez and the United States’ 1983 intervention in Grenada – are used to test these assumptions. Both cases support the theory: decision-makers utilize international law as a means of justifying their policy to international audiences, in contrast to many existing theories. Additionally, decision-makers appeared to have preferred legal arguments built on specific claims, in keeping with the theoretical predictions.

On What Grounds? Legal References and Reasoning at the International Criminal Court

Draft presented at the 2020 International Studies Association West meeting

What is the language of effective human rights argumentation? When challenging a state’s human rights practices, actors can draw on a range of discursive options from the ethical and moral to the political and legal. Current research on human rights argumentations highlights the strategic use of rhetoric to create political outcomes largely on a case-by-case basis. However, little scholarship to date has applied quantitative methodologies to systematically analyze the use of law-based arguments, and their acceptance or rejection, in global human rights argumentation. This study uses data on all recommendations made at the first two cycles of the Universal Periodic Review, a United Nations mechanism by which all states are reviewed regularly on their human rights practices. Using an original coding of legal and nonlegal recommendations, I show that legal claims have the greatest likelihood of success, outperforming nonlegal arguments. Elite interviews are then used to determine how actors understand, employ, and interpret legal arguments. These findings deepen our understand of why actors employ legal rhetoric, how international legal arguments are understood in human rights, and the broader strategic uses of rhetoric in international law and international relations.

What Regulatory Framework Prevails? Evidence from the EU-Mercosur Trade Negotiations, with Nicolas Albertoni (Universidad Católica del Uruguay) & Sebastián Vallejo (University of Houston)

Data Analysis in Progress​

When regional groups enter trade negotiations, what texts do they draw on? Previous scholarship has noted the importance of text in trade agreements as a reflection of the relative power of the parties, with more powerful actors securing more favorable texts in final agreements. What happens when negotiations occur between two large regional groups? Using a text-as-date approach, we analyze negotiations between the European Union and Mercosur to see if there is an EU or Mercosur 'way' to creating trade negotiations, or if disputes are instead resolved by borrowing text from WTO agreements. In doing so, we contribute to scholarship on trade agreements and negotiations, as well as literatures on the creation and structure of international agreements, emphasizing the importance of reference texts in resolving trade disagreements.