International Courts and the Performance of International Agreements

Clifford J. Carrubba is a Professor of Political Science, Chair of the Political Science Department, and Professor of Law, by courtesy, at Emory University, Atlanta. He also founded and is currently serving as the Director of the Institute for Quantitative Theory and Methods at Emory University. Carrubba has published in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, International Organizations, Political Analysis, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization. Matthew J. Gabel is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Washington University, St Louis, where he also serves as the associate chair of the department. In 2010, he was a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow. He is the author of Interests and Integration (1998) and has written articles for American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Common Market Studies, and Comparative Political Studies. Gabel is a founding associate editor of European Union Politics.

• 1. Introduction: international courts and compliance; 2. A theory of courts and compliance in international law; 3. The empirical relevance of the theoretical model: evaluating the hypotheses in the European Union context; 4. Preliminary considerations on testing the political-sensitivity hypothesis: designing a control for the legal merits; 5. A test of the political-sensitivity hypothesis; 6. A test of the conditional-effectiveness hypothesis: the European Court of Justice and economic integration; 7. Conclusion.

'Through formal modeling, or game-theory, the book offers a fascinating portrayal of the dynamics that govern judicial adjudication vis à vis market integration in the European Union. The methodological rigor that characterizes the work - in particular the consistent search for alternative explanations - supports the validity of the theory and stimulates further reflection on its practical implications … The complexity of the topic and the innovative approach followed by the authors make this volume a valuable learning instrument for graduate students of political sciences and law, in particular Ph.D. candidates working with regressive analysis, but also for judges and lawyers interested in the enforcement of international agreements.' Giacomo Di Federico, International Journal for Court Administration