The Limits of Leviathan

Robert Scott is a nationally recognized scholar and teacher in the fields of contracts, commercial transactions and bankruptcy. He was Lewis F. Powell Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law from 1982-2003, and William L. Matheson & Robert M. Morgenthau Distinguished Professor from 2001-03. In 2003 he was named an inaugural recipient of the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professorship. He has delivered numerous papers and published extensively in law journals. He has co-authored four books on contracts and commercial transactions. Among his many articles are six that he co-authored with Prof. Charles Goetz that set the standard for the economic analysis of the law of contracts. Paul Stephan is an expert on international business and Soviet and post-Soviet legal systems who spent his career studying and writing about the globalization of the world economy and the transition away from Soviet-style socialism. He joined the Virginia faculty in 1979 and was the Percy Brown Jr. Professor of Law from 1991 to 2003. He has written extensively on international law, corruption, and the history of the Cold War, as well as on taxation and constitutional law. He has worked in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Albania, and Slovakia on behalf of the U.S. Treasury and in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan on behalf of the International Monetary Fund.

• Foreword; 1. Introduction; 2. States, firms, and the enforcement of international law; 3. Lessons from contract theory; 4. A model of optimal enforcement; 5. Patterns of international law enforcement; 6. The choice between formal and informal enforcement; 7. The future of international law and its enforcement; Glossary; Table of authorities; Index.

Review of the hardback: 'Professors Scott and Stephan have produced an important and thought-provoking book on the intersection of contract theory and international law. The authors contend that there is too much enforcement of international law by private parties who file complaints before international tribunals and domestic courts armed with the power to sanction nations that fail to live up to their treaty bargains. This is a provocative claim, one that challenges the widely-held views of international lawyers and political scientists that the international legal system is weak and needs to be strengthened. The authors support their theory of optimal enforcement of international agreements with numerous examples ranging across human rights, trade, international criminal law, and intellectual property. And they include specific prescriptions for governments and policymakers. Scholars of international cooperation and treaty design would do well to give The Limits of Leviathan the careful attention that it deserves.' Laurence R. Helfer, Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University Law School