Sara Mitchell and Andrew Owsiak's examination of the impact of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and Article 287 declarations on the peaceful resolution of maritime disputes significantly advances the literature on the relationship between international law/international courts and maritime issues. To their credit, the authors employ a wide range of empirical tests in the article to provide readers with confidence in the empirical results. Nonetheless, there are some important limitations in their approach. Drawing on insights from the causal inference literature, I argue that Mitchell and Owsiak's empirical analyses suffer from two biases that both (1) raise concerns about the causal relationships identified in the article, and (2) suggest some important scope conditions in its empirical findings. I investigate the biases and propose suggestions for legal scholarship to produce more credible results.

In the international legal order, sanctions are valued for their coercive and stigmatizing functions. Through the imposition of financial or other costs, these measures seek to induce compliance with international law by those who are targeted. They also aim to signal the sender's commitment to the violated norm and stigmatize an actor responsible for wrongful behavior. In light of these functions, this essay examines the factors to assess when evaluating the efficacy of unilateral targeted sanctions in enforcing international law. The issue is relevant not only for political scientists, but also for international lawyers interested in ensuring compliance with international norms.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have sentenced over 130 perpetrators for genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, or war crimes. Sentencing judgments discuss the factors considered by the judges and impose a term of imprisonment. We regressed the sentence length meted out for each perpetrator on the doctrinal factors said to explain the term of imprisonment and on other factors rumored to affect sentencing. We find that the gravity of the crime and aggravating factors declared by the Tribunals as sentencing factors are significantly related to sentence length but that the mitigating factors proclaimed by the tribunals—all but one of which are associated with diplomatic and policy objectives—are not significantly related to the term of imprisonment. We conclude that international criminal sentences prioritize punishment of the individual based on the seriousness of the crime over the other diplomatic and policy goals that the judges claim to be pursuing. We conjecture that this discrepancy is based on functional differences: the sentencing judgment discussion seeks to advance the many policy objectives of the Tribunals, while the declared term of imprisonment is largely an expressive act of retributive justice, which might also facilitate deterrence and reconciliation.

In October 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), a bilateral treaty between Russia and the United States governing the disposal of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. A Russian Foreign Ministry director explained that the decision was prompted by a “dramatic change in the situation . . . brought about by the unfriendly steps taken by the United States.” He also cited “the United States’ obvious inability and unwillingness to honour its obligations . . . on time and in full.” The United States expressed disappointment at the suspension, arguing that continued implementation was in both states’ interests.

Perhaps no part of international law gives rise to more uncertainty and disagreement than the law which determines the resulting rights and duties of states and individuals upon a change of sovereignty, — the so-called law of succession. One group of writers holds that the. new sovereign succeeds to all the rights and obligations of the former sovereign with respect to the territory ceded. The new sovereign, it is said, like the Roman heir, is “universal successor” to the obligations as well as to the rights of the former sovereign. Grotius suggests the analogy of the Roman heir when he says: “Heredis personam, quoad dominii tam publici quam privati continuationem, pro eadem censeri cum defuncti persona, certi est juris” (Book II, Chap. IX, sec. 12). Again, he says: “Potest imperium victoria acquiti, ut est in rege alio imperante, et tune in ejus jus succeditur” (Book III, Chap. VIII, sec. 2). This analogy, suggested by Grotius when international law was in the making, has had a remarkably strong influence upon the development of the rules of international law governing a change of sovereignty. Many writers of authority, following in the footsteps of Grotius, have laid it down that the new sovereign succeeds to all the obligations as well as to the rights of the former sovereign.