Compliance with International Treaties: Selective Adaptation Analysis

Abstract

SummaryThis comment revisits the debate on the reasons for compliance, or lack thereof, with the regulations and administrative rules that govern the current international trade regime. The research on which it is based is the first part of the five-year project on Cross-Cultural Dispute Resolution funded by the Major Collaborative Research Initiative program of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It focuses on the cultural components of non-compliance based on analysis of the legislative internalization of World Trade Organization norms and case law in China, Canada, and Japan on the one hand and on individual perceptions of the international trade environment on the other. The main hypotheses are that the sharing of international practice rules does not necessarily indicate consensus on the normative order underlying those rules and that the behaviour of those who are involved in the interpretation and application of international rules is informed by (1) their perception of the purpose, content, and effect of nonlocal rules and their underlying norms; (2) those rules' and norms' complementarity with local rules and norms; and (3) the degree of legitimacy accorded by local communities to the processes of interpretation and application.