Scoville: Socializing Students: Law Schools and the Efficacy of International Norms

Ryan Scoville (Marquette Univ. - Law) has posted Socializing Students: Law Schools and the Efficacy of International Norms. Here's the abstract:

This Article identifies a global condition and then hypothesizes on why it matters. The condition is that the study of public international law around the world is polymorphic: Reporting the results of the first global survey on the study of the discipline, I demonstrate that there are substantial cross-national variations in the pervasiveness, quality, topical emphases, and ideological orientation of university training on international law. PILMap.org — a website that accompanies the Article — reveals some of these findings in the form of an interactive world map.

The hypothesis, in turn, is that polymorphism matters because it influences the efficacy of international law: In states where international legal education is widespread, rigorous, and supportive of the discipline, universities will materially contribute to norm awareness, utilization, and even obedience over the long run. In states where training is unavailable or limited, poor in quality, or hostile, university curricula will have a neutral or opposite effect. Moreover, the fact of cross-national variation in these conditions imposes a systemic limit on the coherence and value of public international law. The central claim is that this hypothesis — the “training hypothesis” — is reasonable, enjoys substantial empirical support, and, if correct, carries significant implications for universities and foreign ministries.