Karolina Milewicz

Who is in love with multilateralism? Treaty commitment in the post-Cold War era

Since the end of the Cold War, multilateral treaties have again become a central vehicle for international cooperation. In this article, we study states’ commitment to 76 multilateral treaties concluded between 1990 and 2005. The article offers a systematic account of present-day multilateral treaty-making efforts and asks what explains variation in states’ participation as witnessed in the act of treaty ratification. We test existing explanations and provide a novel argument that accounts for the strong participation of new European democracies in multilateral treaties. We find that regime type and being part of the European Union (EU) strongly affect treaty ratification. New EU democracies, in particular, are much more likely to ratify multilateral treaties than are other new democracies.

Beyond Trade: The Expanding Scope of the Nontrade Agenda in Trade Agreements

Increased complexity and density of transnational problems create unprecedented challenges and opportunities for contemporary international governance. “Issue linkage” is one institutional arrangement through which states address these changing circumstances. In this article, we examine the widening scope of the nontrade agenda in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Nontrade issues (NTIs) such as human rights, democracy, environment, corruption, and labor standards are increasingly linked to PTAs. This issue linkage has important implications for understanding changing patterns of international trade, including the shift to PTAs and the rise of NTIs. We show that (1) states’ choices to commit to bilateral or plurilateral versions of traditional PTAs and to PTAs with NTIs are highly interdependent, (2) states increasingly incorporate NTIs into PTAs, as the associated costs of policy change are lowered through earlier agreements, and (3) network pressures favor the increasing adoption of bilateral and especially plurilateral NTIs over time. Using an original data set on NTIs covering 522 PTAs and spanning the period 1951 to 2009, we evaluate states’ motives behind the widening nontrade agenda of trade agreements using longitudinal network modeling. We employ multiplex coevolution stochastic actor-oriented network models in a novel design to account for interdependencies within and across states’ decisions. Following a descriptive mapping of major NTIs, we evaluate our theoretical arguments. Testing against the alternative explanations of power and commitment, we find that endogenous cost considerations are the most significant factor explaining the inclusion of NTIs into PTAs.

Deliberative capacity building through international organizations: the case of the Universal Periodic Review of human rights

Theories of deliberation, developed largely with respect to domestic politics, are becoming increasingly relevant for international politics. The recently-established Universal Periodic Review (UPR) operating under the auspices of the UNs Human Rights Council is an excellent illustration. Our analysis of responses to its reports and recommendations suggests that the deliberative processes surrounding the UPR do indeed evoke cooperative responses even from countries with poor human rights records. Its highly inclusive, deliberative, repeated-play and peer-to-peer nature can serve as a model for how international organizations more generally can enhance deliberative capacity across the international system.

Compensatory Constitutionalisation: A Comparative Perspective

Legal scholars argue that there is an emerging global compensatory constitution. This denotes a set of compatible supranational and national institutions that fulfil functions hitherto fulfilled by national constitutions. Thus, de-constitutionalisation at the national level, which, as this strand of literature argues, has been brought about by forces such as globalisation, is compensated for. There are strong hints that such constitutionalisation takes place in a formal sense: there is an increasing number of norms which could be seen as elements of a new global constitutional order. But it is far from clear whether these norms make a difference. In this paper we ask whether states comply with this presumably new constitutional order. We distinguish between three types of rights which are granted by a constitution—political, economic and social rights. In this paper we focus on the economic and social components of the emerging global constitution, which have been neglected in previous research. We study compliance with International Labour Organization (ILO) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) norms. The ILO is the major source of a global social constitution; the WTO is the major source of a global economic constitution. We show that compliance is very uneven. Whilst formally a global constitution may be in the making, it makes little difference for citizens.

The Politics of Treaty Signature: The Role of Diplomats and Ties that Bind

The literature on international cooperation through legal commitments focuses chiefly on treaty ratification. What has received much less attention is that before states ratify treaties, they commit to treaties through the act of signature. This article addresses this research gap by investigating how a state’s decision to sign a treaty is affected by its diplomatic representation during treaty negotiations. Conceptualizing signature as a commitment step, we argue that participation in treaty negotiations translates into a “ties-that-bind” effect creating incentives for diplomats to support the treaty text leading to treaty signature. Our empirical analysis uses a new data set on signature and tests the argument for 52 multilateral treaties concluded between 1990 and 2005. Results confirm that participation in treaty making matters for signature but not necessarily for ratification.