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When states conclude negotiations and ratify international treaties such as the Paris Agreement, we consider this a significant development. There is now an expectation that those who joined the international agreement will make efforts to implement it. This paper analyses the following question: what does a state’s effort to implement a norm of international law tell us about its commitment to that norm? I propose that we can infer a state’s degree of commitment by looking at the consistency and publicity of words and actions and the state’s engagement with the international community. Depending on whether a state’s discourse and behaviour exhibit low or strong levels of commitment, we can then identify weak normative influence, strong normative influence, norm avoidance, or internalisation. I, therefore, speak to both the first and second strand of norm research that Wiener and Orchard identify by looking at the process of implementation and by emphasising the agency of states in this process.
Anette Stimmer, University of Oxford
Lisbeth Zimmermann, Zeppelin University
Nico Krisch, the Graduate Institute
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This event is organised by the Global Governance Centre. It is part of the ERC-funded research project "The Paths of International Law".