International Law as Legal Obligations or Global Standards?

Abstract

Despite significant debate about the ability of international law to constrain state behavior, recent research points to domestic mechanisms that deter non-compliance, most notably public disapproval of governments that violate treaty agreements. However, existing studies have not explicitly differentiated two distinct, theoretically important motivations that underlie this disapproval: respect for legal obligations versus the desire to abide by global standards. We design an innovative survey experiment in Japan that manipulates information about these two potential channels directly. We examine attitudes towards four controversial practices---samesurname marriage, whaling, hate speech regulation, and capital punishment---and find that the legal obligation cue has a stronger effect on respondent attitudes than the global standards cue. We also show subgroup differences based on prior beliefs about Japan's global influence and identification with global civil society. These results of the average and heterogeneous treatment effects demonstrate that the legal nature of international law, rather than global norms, is crucial to domestic compliance pull.