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Abstract
Scholarship on international law and institutions is deferential to the study of the international “Nomos,” an organizing principle that guides the order and orientation of states to manage the complexities of their interactions and interdependence. The first part of this thesis explores the foundations of international law. International law emerges as an ordering process in response to frictions in the self-help system of anarchy. Recurring “structured domains” subsist in anarchy that require regimes of management. New structured domains result from increasing complexity in the international system. International law is derivative of these management regimes. We generalize the enforcement mechanisms of international law into three categories: hierarchical, decentralized, and internalized enforcement. Nomos, cyclical and shaped by contestations of power and interest, interacts with these enforcement mechanisms to shape the design of management regimes. Wars and shifts in the distribution of power bring fluidity to the international order, weakening management regimes until a new Nomos forms through “habit.” This neorealist restatement is pitted against traditional theories of international law through a historical appraisal. The second part of this thesis applies this framework to the law of the sea, tracing the historical patterns of friction begetting management. After establishing the hierarchical and reciprocal mechanisms of enforcement in ordering the rules of the sea, the operation of this general theory is evaluated through two studies. First, an analysis of the historical development of the law of the sea through UNCLOS and contestation thereafter demonstrates the role of the United States in crafting rules supportive of freedom of navigation, and the rise of “excessive jurisdiction” driven by the ascent of China and inchoate multipolarity. Next, a qualitative study of maritime boundary disputes is undertaken to show the reciprocal interests necessary for effective settlements on the delimitation of exclusive economic zones, as well as the strategic determinants of disputes being delegated to arbitration and adjudication.