Is Compliance an Indicator for the State of International Law?

This chapter questions the utility of using compliance—understood as behaviour consistent with applicable rules of international law—as a direct indicator for the state of international law. Instead it develops a claim that, across many domains, contemporary international law faces a ‘compliance trilemma’. In many instances, the actors who wish to construct an international rule of law pursue the goals of (1) widespread participation, (2) ambitious legal norms, and (3) high rates of compliance. However, it is often possible to achieve, at most, two of these goals, giving rise to the Trilemma. Hence, compliance remains an important subject of study because efforts to construct an international rule of law confront inescapable trade-offs between pursuit of heightened compliance and other desirable outcomes, such as increased participation and increased depth of international legal norms.