Leslie Johns

Strengthening International Courts and the Early Settlement of Disputes

How does variation in the strength of a court’s jurisdiction and enforcement affect strategic behavior by states involved in international disputes? The authors construct a formal model and identify three important ways that legal institutions can have a deleterious effect on international cooperation by magnifying the bargaining problems arising from incomplete information about the quality of the legal claims. First, strong courts create less information revelation in pretrial bargaining. Second, strong courts reduce the likelihood of pretrial settlements between states. Third, strong courts lead to more brinksmanship over high-value assets, which leads to conflict if the court refuses to intervene. The authors argue that a key policy implication of their model is that attempts to strengthen international courts must be accompanied by increased precision of international law to ameliorate the deleterious effects of strong courts.

Depth versus rigidity in the design of international trade agreements

I examine the impact of depth and rigidity in international trade agreements. Increasing the depth of required cooperation lowers the likelihood of full compliance and the stability of a trade regime. In contrast, increasing the rigidity of an agreement raises the likelihood of full compliance and lowers stability. Both depth and rigidity can lower tariffs if a state does not defect from its treaty obligations. I argue that if we control for the benefits of trade liberalization, then observable treaties will have a negative relationship between depth and rigidity. Deep agreements will be flexible, while shallow agreements will be rigid.

Under One Roof: Supply Chains and the Protection of Foreign Investment

We argue that economic links, such as supply chains, can create a common roof that protects foreign investors in host countries that lack strong institutions to protect property rights. Supply chains link the activities of firms: when a host government breaks a contract with one firm, other firms in the supply chain are harmed. These partner firms therefore have incentive to protect one anothers property rights. This leads to the key implication of our argument: host governments are less likely to violate the property rights of firms that are more tightly linked with other firms in the host economy. We test our argument with cross-national data on investment arbitration, a survey of US multinational subsidiaries in Russia, and case studies from Azerbaijan. Our findings imply that one benefit of outsourcing in developing and transition economies is the creation of a network of partner firms that protect each others property rights.

Courts as Coordinators: Endogenous Enforcement and Jurisdiction in International Adjudication

Why do states build international courts, submit cases, and enforce court judgments? This article examines the role of a court that is neither a “decider” nor an “information provider.” Litigation is costly and does not reveal private information. The court’s ruling is not binding and bargaining can occur before and after the court has ruled. Nevertheless, an alternative dispute resolution mechanism emerges: court rulings can coordinate endogenous multilateral enforcement. Disinterested states will enforce to ensure that they can profitably use the court in the future. Accepting jurisdiction of the court allows a state to make efficiency-enhancing “trades,” winning high-value disputes in exchange for losing low-value disputes. This is possible because litigation is a screening device: states only sue when they derive relatively high value from the disputed asset. The use of the court as a coordination device for multilateral enforcement allows for the existence of a court with endogenous enforcement and jurisdiction.

Strengthening International Courts: The Hidden Costs of Legalization

As all manner of commerce becomes increasingly global, states must establish laws to protect property rights, human rights, and national security. In many cases, states delegate authority to resolve disputes regarding these laws to an independent court, whose power depends upon its ability to enforce its rulings. Examining detailed case studies of the International Court of Justice and the transition from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to the World Trade Organization, Leslie Johns finds that a courtAEs design has nuanced and mixed effects on international cooperation. A strong court is ideal when laws are precise and the court is nested within a political structure like the European Union. Strong courts encourage litigation but make states more likely to comply with agreements when compliance is easy and withdraw from agreements when it is difficult. A weak court is optimal when law is imprecise and states can easily exit agreements with minimal political or economic repercussions. Johns concludes the book with recommendations for promoting cooperation by creating more precise international laws and increasing both delegation and obligation to international courts.

Knowing the Unknown: Executive Evaluation and International Crisis Outcomes

When voters evaluate their executives policies, they often possess information that was previously unknownto policy makers. Should voters use such ex post information? The author presents a model of executive evaluation following an international crisis. Using ex post information can be welfare enhancing for the voter when contrasted with naive retrospection, in which voters compare pre- and postconflict utility. However, the welfare implications of using ex post information are not clear-cut when contrasted to sophisticated retrospective voting. While the latter voting rule leads to situations in which an executive is overly aggressive in crises, using ex post information can induce executive behavior that is insufficiently aggressive. Voters must balance the relative desirability of unwanted wars against unwanted passivity when deciding how to evaluate leaders. In opening up the black box of domestic politics, assumptions about voter behavior can affect substantive and normative findings.

Fear of Crowds in World Trade Organization Disputes: Why Don’t More Countries Participate?

The participation deficit in global governance is usually blamed on power politics; we argue it may actually reflect strategic behavior by excluded countries themselves. In the World Trade Organization, member-states affected by a trade dispute can join litigation as “third parties” to gain access to otherwise private negotiations. In spite of its considerable benefit and negligible cost, third-party participation remains rare. Countries often stay out even when they have a material interest at stake. Why is this? We argue that because the presence of third parties decreases the odds of a settlement and increases the odds of litigation, strategic states may choose to stay out to avoid acting as involuntary spoilers. All states benefit from a swift resolution to trade disputes, so the benefit of participation decreases as more states join a case. We test our model by examining each country’s decision to participate or not in every WTO dispute since 1995. The findings support our theory: states shy away from joining when it is too crowded.

International Law’s Empire

Scarcely a day passes without demonstration of the scope, power, and contentiousness of international law. In recent months, countries worldwide have retaliated against the United States for new aluminum and steel tariffs, which they believe violate international trade law. The United States and its allies have launched missile strikes against the Assad regime in Syria for violating international laws that prohibit the use of chemical weapons. And massive flows of migrants into Europe and the United States have prompted debates about the international legal obligations that rich and stable countries have toward individuals who flee poverty and violence in their homelands. These are just a few of the many contemporary examples of international law’s empire. Three new books offer diverse perspectives on the design, use, and development of international law. These books adopt diverse perspectives—rationalist, constructivist, and sociological—to examine the relationship between international law and politics. When viewed collectively, they demonstrate that political scientists have underappreciated the vast expanse of international law’s empire, and they suggest a path forward. First, we must examine the diverse forms of international law. Second, we must analyze the uses of inter-

Free Riding on Enforcement in the World Trade Organization

Many policies that appear to violate WTO rules remain unchallenged, even as they have a significant economic impact. Why is this? We argue that the likelihood that a country challenges a protectionist policy is linked to how concentrated or diffuse that policy is. When it is concentrated, litigation is a private good. But when a policy is diffuse, affecting many states, litigation is a public good and countries face a collective action problem: each country seeks to free ride on others’ litigation. The resulting selection effect has two consequences. First, we see a longer enforcement delay for diffuse trade violations. Second, states require higher odds of success to overcome the collective action problem, meaning that conditional on being filed, cases that challenge concentrated policies are less likely to succeed. Examining all WTO disputes, we leverage selection effects to test our argument using data on the timing and outcomes of trade disputes.

Free-Riding on Enforcement in the WTO

Countries can challenge potential trade violations using the WTOs dispute settlement system, yet many policies that appear to violate WTO rules remain unchallenged, even when they have a significant economic impact. Why is this? We argue that the likelihood that a country challenges a protectionist policy is linked to how concentrated or diffuse the policy is. When a policy is concentrated --- because it affects only one country --- litigation is a private good, meaning that a country that pays the cost of litigation receives the full benefit of litigation. But when a policy is diffuse --- because it affects many countries --- litigation is a public good and countries face a collective action problem: many countries can benefit from litigation, but each country wants to free-ride by having another country pay the cost. The resulting selection effect has two consequences. First, the free-rider problem reduces the likelihood that a diffuse policy will be challenged in any given period, generating a longer enforcement delay for diffuse trade violations. Second, cases must have more legal merit in order for countries to overcome the collective action problem, meaning that conditional on being filed, cases that challenge concentrated policies will have less legal merit than cases that challenge diffuse policies. We leverage selection effects to test our argument using data on the timing and outcomes of trade disputes. The evidence, which considers all WTO disputes from 1995 to 2013, bears out these beliefs.