Information in International Law

Examining state behavior, this book sheds light on the often-overlooked role of information production and diffusion in international law and relations. Most theories of public international law and state behavior rely on a certain degree of international law-related information, such as an international legal ruling, being made public and diffused to reach various key actors such as third states or domestic actors. However, while assumptions about information being produced and diffused permeate international legal scholarly work, these assumptions have not been systematically and empirically evaluated. Based on an empirical analysis, the author challenges prevailing assumptions by systematically evaluating the accessibility and dissemination of crucial international law related information such as treaty negotiation documents or legal rulings.

Using a variety of quantitative case studies on key stages of international lawmaking and covering various issue-areas, from human rights to trade law, each chapter traverses three critical levels of analysis, namely whether international law information is public and transparent, whether the information is salient and reaches the general public, and how the information is framed by the media and political elites.

The book will appeal to students, researchers, and scholars of law, political science, and economics, as well as policy-makers interested in a better understanding of information production and diffusion in international law and the impact of public opinion on compliance with international law.

Auteur

José M. Reis is a researcher at the Portuguese National Cybersecurity Centre (CNCS) and affiliated with the Behavioural Research Approaches in International Law Network (BRAIN) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. His current research interests revolve around issues at the intersection of law and social science, focusing on information diffusion in international law in general, human rights agenda-setting in specific, and topics associated with the interaction between cybersecurity and disinformation. Before joining his current position, he held a post-doctoral fellowship at the Social Physics and Complexity Lab (Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas - LIP), Portugal, as well as a research associate at the Institute of Law and Economics, University of Hamburg. He also briefly worked in Law firms in Portugal and India and as the co-director of the NGO "Pro Bono Portugal", the first public interest legal clearing house in Portugal. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Hamburg, an LL.M. in Law and Economics from the University of Hamburg and the University of Vienna, and was a Visiting Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, USA.