Nudges having paternalistic purposes (paternalistic nudges) pose special legal problems in liberal States. Surprisingly, the discussion on regulation-by-nudging has not focused on the constitutional limits to nudging. Although the property rights of firms potentially infringed by nudging...

Traditionally, the enforcement of public international law (PIL) was a task of states: its addressees and its enforcers were states. That has changed recently. Whereas the influence of private market actors on the making of PIL has been extensively analyzed, their influence on its enforcement...

The question of why states comply with international law has long been at the forefront of international law and international relations scholarship. The compliance discussion has largely focused on negative incentives for states to comply. We argue that there is another, undertheorized...

Framing is pervasive in public international law. International legal norms (incl. soft law) and international politics both inevitably frame how international actors perceive a given problem. Although framing has been an object of study for a long time – be it in domestic or international...

The rationalist approach to international law mostly stands on two pillars: the rational choice assumption and, following the traditional international law assumptions in the aftermath of the Westphalian peace, the nation-state has mostly been analyzed as a unitary actor. Rational choice...

Traditionally, the enforcement of Public International Law (PIL) was a task of states: the addressees and the enforcers of PIL were states. That has changed recently. Whereas the influence of private market actors on the making of PIL has been extensively analyzed, the influence of private...

Empirical research shows that international human rights law is to a large extent ineffective. Individual complaint mechanisms are the only significantly effective enforcement mechanism. Certainly many variables influence the success of enforcement through judicial or quasi-judicial mechanisms...

It is a commonplace that we live in an era of increasing international interdependence, in which there has been a proliferation of international law and international organizations. Yet our understanding of the workings of international law has not kept pace. While we have a good deal of work on...