Business law professor, Paul Donion presents a brief overview on important concepts like International Norms and the role of Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) in International Law

1. International Law:
Norms, TANs & other important concepts you should know about

2. What are
international norms?
✤ Norms: standards or behavior
defined in terms of rights/
obligations & are informal
international institutions.
✤ Norms of fairness shape
political appeals and policies in
many countries.

3. 3 Categories of Norms:

4. 1. Constitutive
✤ Defines who is a legitimate or
appropriate actor under what
circumstances.
✤ for example, sovereignty is a
constitutive norm.
✤ so is national self-
determination

5. 2. Procedural
✤ Define how decisions involving
multiple actors should get made.
✤ Basically, procedural norms outline the
ways in which groups should operate.
For example, assigning roles to support
an effect group process (i.e. facilitator,
time keeper, scribe, process observer, etc.)

6. 3. Regulative
✤ Govern the behavior of actors
in their interactions with other
actors.
✤ R2P: example norm of election
monitoring.
✤ Nuclear taboo: is also
regulative norm.

7. How are International Norms
created?

8. ✤ For a principle and/or idea to become
institutionalized as a norm, the standard of behavior it
specifies must be accepted as morally right and
appropriate by a sufficiently large proportion of any
given population.
✤ Some principles become norms simply by the force of
their own inherent goodness.
✤ example: nuclear taboo

9. ✤ Norms typically begin with individuals/groups who
seek to advance a principled standard of behavior for
states and other actors —> norms entrepreneurs
✤ Norms entrepreneurs typically form TANs: global civil
society groups that are dedicated to particular political,
economic and social causes.

10. Transnational Advocacy Networks
or (TANs):
✤ Are sets of activists allied in the pursuit of a common
normative objective including: human rights, the
environment, economic/political justice, women’s rights,
abortion, etc.

11. WithinTANs,
actors include:
✤ International/domestic NGOs,
local social movements,
foundations & other
philanthropic organizations,
the media, churches and other
civil organizations.

12. What doTANs do?
✤ They promote norms to alter interests and change
interactions at the individual/state levels.
✤ TANs change how actors conceive of their interests by
promoting new moral values.
✤ Additionally, an important function includes
encouragement and support for socially appropriate
behaviors and helping to spread norms across national
borders.

13. 3 Stage Norms Life Cycle
✤ 1. Norms entrepreneurs actively work to convince a critical
mass of other individuals in other states to embrace their
beliefs.
✤ 2. Once a new frame has taken hold, a norms cascade occurs:
conformity to the new norm can be established through coercion or
socialization.
✤ 3. Norms are internalized or become so widely accepted that
they acquire the taken-for-granted quality that makes
conforming almost automatic.

14. Do Norms Matter?

15. Norms constrain states
and other actors in two
ways:
✤ 1. By redefining interests:
shaping what actors believe is
right/appropriate behavior
under specific circumstances.
✤ 2. By changing their
interactions: TANs play
important role in enforcing
norms by calling attention to
violations of widely held
beliefs— practice known as
naming and shaming.

16. Boomerang
Model
Most likely to be activated by NGO
originating in nondemocratic regimes and
directed at NGOs in more democratic
states- where governments are more
sensitive to social demands pressed by
voters.
Example: anti-apartheid movement in
South Africa.

17. TANs as
endorsers
✤ TANs enhance the prospects
for cooperation between states;
they can reduce uncertainty
and improve the likelihood of
cooperation by providing
information to all the parties.

18. TANs as
monitors
✤ By revealing information about
compliance, TANs allow states
to have greater confidence that
current and future agreements
will be honored.

19. States acquire information about
compliance in 1 of 3 ways:
✤ 1. They can rely on the self-reports of others
✤ 2. States can monitor one another’s behavior directly
✤ Example: arms control agreement between U.S. and
Soviet Union during Cold War
✤ 3. States can monitor indirectly by listening to the testimony of
trustworthy third parties.
(International Law primarily constrains states in their relations to one
another.)

20. www.pauldonion.net
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