Law is the ordinary state of affairs states normally

law is the ordinary state of affairs. States normally follow the rules .
Compliance is caused by the commonly shared expectation that governments and individuals will
abide by the law; the disapproval and condemnation that result when rules are broken; the loss of
standing suffered by a rule-breaking state, which can have adverse diplomatic and economic
consequences; and the availability of sanctions including economic measures like trade embargoes
and in extreme cases, the use of force directed by the Security Council.
Treaties work ---norm development, decrease incentives for defection, provide
mechanisms for capacity-building and technical assistance
Findlay 6
– PhD, Director, Canadian Centre for Treaty Compliance, Associate Professor, Norman
Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA)
(Trevor, “Presentation to Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA),” Scholar)
So the general question arises: when treaties work , why do they work? The short answer is because
they embody a norm , an aspiration, a settlement that is valued by all of the parties . The treaty has been
well constructed to reflect these elements, the states that become party are happy with the outcome
and there are no incentives to defect from the agreement . The best example of this phenomenon that I
can think of is the Ottawa Landmine Convention. It embodies the special mix of aspirations of all those
who inspired it, notably the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and states parties such as Canada,
Belgium and Norway. It is geared to deal not just with disarmament, but with humanitarian and quasi-
development issues such as demining. Its focus on capacity- building and technical assistance has
given it a constituency among developing countries that other disarmament agreements favoured by the
first world lack. This has not insulated it entirely from violations―Uganda almost certainly has done
so―but it ha s surrounded the treaty with a hugely supportive cacoon of states and civil society in
genuine partnership .
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Another reason why treaties work is that their goals are simply expressed, or at
least readily identifiable, and their achievements are measurable. An effective monitoring and
verification system can be of enormous help here, providing confidence to all states parties that there
are no free-riders and that non-compliance will not threaten them .
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One of the most successful
environmental treaties of our time is the Montreal Protocol which seeks to close the hole in the ozone
layer caused by the release of chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere. The ban on CFCs was
relatively simple to envisage, it could be technically monitored with relative ease, developed and
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developing countries were subject to the same requirements and there would be clear evidence that
the treaty was working if the ozone hole started to close. It is .