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International Regimes: Problems of Concept Formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Oran R. Young
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
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Abstract

Although we live in a world of international regimes, the scholarly literature on them remains rudimentary, especially in analytic terms. This essay examines the proposition that all international regimes are social institutions, even though there is great variation among them. Among other things, this suggests that regimes are dependent upon the maintenance of convergent expectations among actors; formalization is not a necessary condition for the effective operation of regimes; and regimes are always created rather than discovered. A conceptual framework and a research agenda for the comparative study of international regimes, as laid out in this essay, would guide studies of specific regimes and improve our ability to reach general conclusions about this fundamental, yet poorly understood, international phenomenon.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1980

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References

1 See, among others, Cooper, Richard N., “Prolegomena to the Choice of an International Monetary System,” International Organization, xxix, No. 1 (1975), 6397CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haas, Ernst B., “On Systems and International Regimes,” World Politics, xxvn (January 1975); 147–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John Gerard Ruggie and Ernst B. Haas, eds., International Responses to Technology, special issue of International Organization, xxix, No. 3 (1975); Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977)Google Scholar; Young, Oran R., Resource Management at the International Level: The Case of the North Pacific (London and New York: Pinter and Nichols, 1977)Google Scholar; Brown, Seyom and others, Regimes for the Ocean, Outer Space, and Weather (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1977)Google Scholar; and Morse, Edward L., “Global and Other International Commons in the 1980s” (mimeo., Council on Foreign Relations, 1976)Google Scholar. In addition, international lawyers have talked about international regimes for some time. To illustrate, see L.F.E. Goldie, “The Management of Ocean Resources: Regimes for Structuring the Maritime Environment,” in Black, Cyril E. and Falk, Richard A., eds., The Future of the International Legal Order, IV: The Structure of the International Environment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 155247Google Scholar.

2 For a range of examples, see Ross, William M., Oil Pollution as an International Problem: A Study of Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Sibthorp, M. M., ed., The North Sea: Challenge and Opportunity (London: Europa, 1975)Google Scholar; Dam, Kenneth, Oil Resources (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976)Google Scholar; and Arild Underdal, “The Politics of International Fisheries Management: The Case of the Northeast Atlantic” (unpub., 1978).

3 For example, Keohane and Nye (fn. 1), Part II.

4 See Young, “International Resource Regimes,” in Russell, Clifford S., ed., Collective Decision Maying: Applications from Public Choice Theory (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 241–82Google Scholar, and Young, “Resource Regimes: Natural Resources and Institutional Design,” in progress.

5 Among other things, it will often prove necessary to rely on domestic courts to enforce the rights and rules incorporated in international regimes. See Falk, Richard A., The Role of Domestic Courts in the International Legal Order (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

6 Actors will virtually never operate behind a Rawlsian “veil of ignorance” in real-world situations. See Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), chap. IIIGoogle Scholar.

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9 The result might be described as a system of “restricted” common property: see Dales, J. H., Pollution, Property, and Prices (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), 6165Google Scholar.

10 My use of the concept “rules” differs somewhat from that prevalent in recent contributions to jurisprudence. Compare Hart, H.L.A., The Concept of Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar, and Dworkin, Ronald, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), esp. chaps. 2 and 3Google Scholar.

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17 Problems of social choice pertaining to the selection and reform of international regimes per se are discussed in a later section of this essay.

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25 Tauber, Ronald S., “The Enforcement of IATA Agreements,” Harvard International Law Journal, x, No. 1 (1969), 133Google Scholar.

26 International regimes, like other social institutions, will ordinarily exhibit the attributes of collective goods (that is, non-excludability and jointness of supply) to a high degree. For further discussion of the problems of supplying collective goods, see Olson, Mancur Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

27 For a variety of examples, see Burke, William T., Legatski, Richard, and Woodhead, William W., National and International Law Enforcement in the Ocean (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

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32 A regime for some natural resource with no private property rights, no liability rules, and allocation based on the principle known as the “law of capture” might approximate this extreme case.

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36 Mair (fn. 24), Part I.

37 See Haveman (fn. 31), 21, for a description of markets in precisely these terms.

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39 This is, for example, the classic argument developed by Locke and similar con-tractarians concerning the origins of government. See John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, paragraphs 123–131.

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42 Recent changes in regimes for marine fisheries arising from unilateral extensions of jurisdiction on the part of coastal states exemplify this prospect. In the case of the United States, the transition was accomplished through the passage of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 (PL 94–265).

43 For a case in point, consult the analysis of the proposed International Seabed Authority, in Young, “International Resource Regimes” (fn. 4).

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45 It is not necessary to subscribe to Marxian precepts to realize that domestic as well as international regimes ma y be heavily influenced by actors who are, in principle, subject to regulation under the terms of these regimes. In fact, this is the central insight of the “capture” theory of regulation.

46 Compare this view with the analysis of conventions in Lewis, David K., Convention: A Philosophical Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969)Google Scholar.

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52 Note that it was formalized or codified in the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Outer Continental Shelf. For relevant background, see Jessup (fn. 29).

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55 The classic early expression of this reasoning appears in Mitrany, David, A Wooing Peace System (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1943)Google Scholar.

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57 See Brown (fn. 1).

58 The distinction between this type of pressure and redistributive pressure frequently becomes blurred in practice because it is politically more acceptable to cloak redistributive desires in the guise of promoting good management practices. Numerous illustrations of this phenomenon can be found in the debates over the American Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976.

59 See Young (fn. 19), 260–62.

60 This argument is set forth clearly in Olson (fn. 26), for the general case of social institutions.

61 Compare the views expressed in Young, “International Resource Regimes” (fn. 4), with those advanced in Eckert, Ross D., “Exploitation of Deep Ocean Minerals: Regulatory Mechanisms and United States Policy,” Journal of Law and Economics, XVII (April 1974), 143–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Some analysts favor unanimity as a decision rule, especially at the level of “constitutional” contracts: see Buchanan, James M. and Tullock, Gordon, The Calculus oj Consent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Rawls (fn. 6) suggests that individuals contemplating principles of justice in the “original position” would reach unanimous agreement.

63 “Thaw in International Law? Rights in Antarctica under the Law of Common Spaces,” Yale Law Journal, Vol. 87 (March 1978), 804–59.

64 See, for example, Gilpin, Robert, “The Politics of Transnational Economic Relations,” International Organization, xxv, No. 3 (1971), 398419CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 A Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Act (H.R. 3350), setting forth a unilaterally imposed regime for deep seabed mining, narrowly failed to pass in the 95th Congress. Similar legislation (S. 493) has been introduced in the 96th Congress, and stands a relatively good chance of passing.

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