Rational choice approaches to customary international law have gained in prominence in recent years. Although becoming increasingly sophisticated, they are not able to explain all phenomena of customary international law. This contribution claims that there are two different types of unwritten...

Despite large uncertainties in the fertilization efficiency, natural iron fertilization studies and some of the purposeful iron enrichment studies have demonstrated that Southern Ocean iron fertilization can lead to a significant export of carbon from the sea surface to the ocean interior. From...

Economic approaches are becoming increasingly prominent in international law. A few years ago, Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner caused a great stir with their account of The Limits of International Law, in which they argued that international law did not have any effect on state conduct. This...

In their majority, public international lawyers postulate that for a new rule of customary law to originate, two conditions must be fulfilled: there must be consistent practice, and it must be shown that this practice is motivated by the belief that such behaviour is required in law. Maurice...

We study the desirability of interventionist harmonization of legal standards across multiple, mutually interdependent jurisdictions which strive to adapt law to their local conditions as well as to synchronize it with other jurisdictions. In a setting where jurisdictions are privately informed...

This paper hopes to challenge the existing paradigm in refugee studies, which presents the development of domestic asylum policies as being essentially driven by a conflict between international humanitarian norms and the self-interest calculations of sovereign states. This paper will show that...

Principal-Agent (P-A) theory sees the fact of delegation as defining a relationship be-tween states (collective Principals) and international organizations (Agents) with recon-tracting threats being the predominate way states influence IOs. Developing a category of Trustee-Agents, I argue that...

Die Lösung globaler Probleme, wie sie durch die allgegenwärtige Verwendung von Chemikalien entstehen, liegt außerhalb der Möglichkeiten des einzelnen Staates. Gleichzeit verhindert die Schwerfälligkeit des Völkerrechts, trotz Modernisierungstendenzen, effektive Lösungen, die zudem...

Many claim a process of judicialization of international dispute settlement procedures is taking place. In order to capture this ongoing process we introduce an analytical framework to assess the degree of judicialization of international dispute settlement procedures. We then proceed to present...

This contribution analyzes the role of consent in the formation of customary law. It will challenge the assumption that customary norms cannot bind states against their will. Relying on game theory, it will distinguish between different situations and argue that the role of consent differs...