Social Networks and Nonlegal Sanctions: Compliance with International Courts

Most international courts do not have effective mechanisms for enforcing compliance with their judgments and yet many of those judgments are nevertheless complied with. The reason must be that states are afraid of the reputational implications of disobeying international courts. States that fail to comply with an international court can expect to suffer a reputational sanction, but the magnitude of this sanction depends on the reputation of the court as well as the social network that surrounds it. If the court were able to change the behavior of states effectively before, the community of states is likely to expect compliance and punish with a strong reputational sanction any recalcitrant state. In addition to that, the unique network structure around the court can determine how painful reputational sanctions would be for the state because reputational sanctions result from the dissemination of information that changes beliefs. Networks that spread information quickly because they have many links between their core and their periphery can increase the reputational damage caused to states that fail to comply. So can networks that are good at processing information accurately because their structure prevents falsehoods from spreading.