Regional patterns of multilateral treaty cooperation: Is there a Latin American ‘commitment gap’?
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211036417 |
| Author | Carsten-Andreas Schulz,Laura Levick |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211036417
International Political Science Review
2023, Vol. 44(3) 316 –333
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/01925121211036417
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Regional patterns of multilateral
treaty cooperation: Is there a Latin
American ‘commitment gap’?
Carsten-Andreas Schulz
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile
Laura Levick
St. Thomas University, Canada
Abstract
Latin American states have long been active participants in multilateral treaty making. However, the rich
history of Latin American legal activism contrasts with debates about the degree to which these states
commit to international agreements. We probe the existence of this purported ‘commitment gap’ by
analyzing the signing and ratification of multilateral treaties. Are Latin American states less likely to ratify
agreements they have signed than states from other world regions? Using survival analysis of an original
dataset on multilateral treaties deposited with the UN Secretary-General, we find no difference between
Latin America and North America/Europe in terms of ratification. If a commitment gap exists, it appears to
be more evident in other regions, particularly East Asia, Africa, and the Anglo-Caribbean. To the extent that
there is a ‘commitment gap’ at the regional level in Latin America, it is unlikely to be due to country-level
factors such as domestic institutions.
Keywords
Multilateral treaties, commitment, Latin America, legalism
Introduction
There is a general expectation that states should (eventually) ratify treaties that they have signed.
However, this is not always the case, as many factors can complicate the move from signing to rati-
fication. In Latin America, in particular, there has been sustained debate about the existence of a
regional pattern whereby states frequently fail to commit to treaties they have signed. We explore
this assumption by examining patterns of multilateral treaty cooperation. We ask whether or not the
Corresponding author:
Laura Levick, Department of Political Science, St. Thomas University, 51 Dineen Drive, Fredericton, NB E3B 5G3,
Canada.
Email: levick@stu.ca
1036417IPS0010.1177/01925121211036417International Political Science ReviewSchulz and Levick
research-article2021
Original Research Article
Schulz and Levick 317
purported ‘commitment gap’ is, in fact, evident in Latin America. If so, what explains it? Also, is
it a uniquely Latin American phenomenon?
Latin American states have long been active participants in multilateral treaty making. In the
early 20th century, Latin Americans spearheaded the codification of international law (Scarfi,
2017). They contributed to shaping international norms concerning sovereignty and the use of
force (Schulz, 2017); they played a key role in creating the international human rights regime
(Sikkink, 2014) and the Bretton Woods institutions after WWII (Helleiner, 2014).1 Latin American
states also took center stage in renegotiating the law of the sea (García-Amador, 1974). Academics
and policymakers emphasize the legalist tradition that has informed the foreign relations of these
states (Coe, 2019: 15–18, 70; Kacowicz, 2005; Merke, 2015: 187). Brazil, Mexico, and Chile, for
example, have traditionally understood their role in international politics as multilateral brokers
whose foreign policies strictly adhere to international law.2
The long and rich history of Latin American legal activism contrasts with debates about the
degree to which these states commit to international agreements, especially at the regional level.
Scholars note that cooperation in the region tends to remain relatively shallow; Latin American
states actively participate in treaty making but routinely fail to formally commit to the agreements
they have signed. At the risk of oversimplification, studies attribute this phenomenon either to
historically evolved cultural norms (Domínguez, 2007), or to a shared constitutional design that
gives sweeping foreign policy powers to the executive, resulting in abrupt policy shifts (Malamud
and Gardini, 2012: 123). Despite these differences, studies highlight a tension between the legalis-
tic foreign policy tradition of Latin American states and the alleged ‘commitment gap’ that exists
with respect to multilateral agreements.
Although the gap has been well documented at the regional level, it remains unclear whether
such a pattern exists in the case of global agreements and, importantly, how Latin America com-
pares with other world regions in this regard.
This article fills this void through a quantitative analysis of Latin America’s participation in and
commitment to multilateral treaties. It draws on an original dataset that contains information on all
multilateral agreements deposited with the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) between
1945 and 2018.3 Using survival analysis, we examine 138,132 observations that correspond to the
actions taken by 179 individual states toward a total of 245 multilateral agreements at different
points in time. This allows us to understand Latin American states’ treaty-making behavior in a truly
comparative context. We ask two questions. First, is there evidence of a Latin American ‘commit-
ment gap’ at the global level? Second, if regional differences exist, are they attributable to shared
country-level features, or do they point to the existence of regional norms of non-commitment?
We examine Latin America’s participation in multilateral treaties in comparison to states from
other world regions. Importantly, however, our analysis does not consider implementation.
Although the regionalist literature does not clearly distinguish between commitment and compli-
ance, our analysis is restricted to the former, due to the number and diversity of issue areas and
countries in our sample. While this means that we are unable to provide a full picture of the nature
and state of legalized cooperation by Latin American states, we nevertheless shed light on the criti-
cal step between the making of a political promise (signing) and the acceptance of said promise as
legally binding (ratification).
We find that Latin American states have indeed been active participants in the multilateral
treaty system. Furthermore, and in contrast to expectations derived from regional accounts, our
analysis suggests that Latin American states’ commitment to these agreements is not fundamen-
tally different from that of states from North America and Europe. This is true even after control-
ling for treaty subject and importance, legal tradition, regime type, wealth, and power. If a
commitment gap exists, it appears to be more evident in other regions, particularly East Asia,
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