International Law and Organization: Closing the Compliance Gap

The last decade of the twentieth century was a heyday for the development of international norms and agreements. Non-state actors and states joined together in codifying new international standards in areas as diverse as arms control, war crimes, human rights violations, environmental protection, sustainable development, and trade. Following this surge, the twenty-first century opened with an abundance of international law but a dearth of international institutions for monitoring or implementing it. Thus compliance has become a major challenge of the early new millennium, and this volume addresses compliance issues from the most general and theoretical to the specifics of key case studies. From around the globe, the distinguished authors of these original essays tackle some of the most urgent challenges to international law today, ranging from child soldiers in Africa all the way up to American exceptionalism.