How International Law Works

Engaging and enterprising...Guzman presents a highly engaging and compelling theory of the forces behind international law...the book is very readable and offers a valuable perspective to anyone with an interest in international law or politics. --International Law and Politics At last! A comprehensive rational choice account of international law that demonstrates why international law does work rather than why it does not. Andrew Guzman demonstrates remarkable mastery of both the international law and the international relations literature, drawing them together in ways that put theoretical and empirical flesh on the bones of more traditional international lawyers' assertions. How International Law Works is an important contribution to an ongoing debate and is bound to inspire further debates of its own. --Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, and former President of the American Society of International Law Guzman's lucid account of international law from a rationalist-institutionalist perspective presents his core concepts of reputation, reciprocity and retaliation in inter-state relations with a clarity that is ideal for students of law and political science, while making excellent use of his expertise in international law and economics to generate research agendas and insights into existing practices and legal doctrines that will enrich specialist international law scholarship even among those who take entirely different approaches to the field. --Benedict Kingsbury, Director, Institute for International Law and Justice NYU Law School This is a crisply written, theoretically rigorous, and lucid argument about why international treaties, rules of custom, and even 'soft law' are more than forms of 'cheap talk.' Guzman tells us, in the modern language of game theory, why policymakers care when they give their 'word.' --Jose E. Alvarez, Hamilton Fish Professor of Intern