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Behavioral Aspects of the International Law of Global Public Goods and Common Pool Resources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2018

Anne van Aaken*
Affiliation:
Professor of Law and Economics, Legal Theory, Public International Law and European Law, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Abstract

Collective action problems with public good characteristics such as climate change have important implications for international law. This note argues that behavioral insights from laboratory experiments, in which individuals engage in public goods games, can contribute to our understanding of how best to optimize the design of international legal regimes dealing with global public goods and common pool resources. Behavioral economics, to the extent it supplements or displaces rational-choice models in institutional design, may enable deeper and more sustained forms of international cooperation.

Type
Notes and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by The American Society of International Law 

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References

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81 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Mar. 3, 1973, 993 UNTS 243. Articles III, IV, and V regulate the trade in endangered species differently depending on the how endangered the species is. Without import and export certificates, no trade can take place.

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