Chapter Three explores the views of former officials regarding compliance by states with international law. Almost all former officials believed that international law constrains state behavior, at least to some extent, and that states comply with international law much of the time. The top positive factors favoring compliance, as revealed by frequency counts, were reputational concerns; state interest in a stable legal and institutional system; reciprocity, or the prospect of retaliation; ethical considerations, including ethical values underlying international law rules and respect for the rule of law; idiosyncratic factors, including the history and culture of states; and benefits flowing from participation in specific regimes. The significant role of ethical factors gives a boost to normative theories about compliance. The role of systemic interests illustrates the benefits of a multilateral, institutional, and rule-based system. Among the factors militating against compliance, the dominant factor was state interest. Many former officials suggested that decisions about compliance involve a cost–benefit assessment, a consideration of many factors including international law. The chapter concludes by considering the former officials’ perceptions about the reasons that states outside of the United States take into consideration regarding compliance with international law.

The constitution of a given economy involves features of invariance in the constellations of positions associated with the existing division of labour. The positions of individual or collective actors relative to one another turn a mere collection of actors into a structured body of interdependencies that is already political and economic prior to its formal establishment through a visible settlement. Interdependencies between actors are conducive to plural ways in which interests arise and group affiliations are shaped. This chapter emphasises the distinction between conciliation of interests as compromise between partial interests and conciliation as pursuit of partial interests under a ‘systemic interest’ reflecting the viability of a given body of interdependencies. Institutional architectures are relatively stable systems of formal and informal rules that determine which constellations of affiliations and interests are possible and which ones may be expected for any given pattern of relative positions. There is a two-way relationship between interdependencies and institutional architectures. Alternative patterns of interdependence are associated with different identifications of systemic interest and different patterns of conciliation under that constraint. On the other hand, institutional architectures may trigger interests that may or may not be compatible with existing interdependencies and their transformation over time.