| This dissertation seeks to solve a fundamental puzzle in the theory of international cooperation: Why, and when, do states fail to comply with treaties they ratify? This work explains variation in compliance rates within and among states by exploring the role that legislatures and executives have in implementing treaties at the domestic level. Treaties are implemented domestically when governments create sanctions, criminalize acts, allocate resources, or provide specific directives for subordinate agencies to fulfill the treaty obligations. When treaties are only weakly implemented, compliance is likely to be lower than when they are strongly implemented. Drawing on insights from the Comparative and American Politics literature, I argue that the preferences of domestic political actors towards the treaty, together with the actors' institutionally circumscribed ability to change the status quo, determine how the treaty, once ratified, is domestically implemented, and thus affect levels of compliance. I test this theory against competing explanations of compliance failures using qualitative and quantitative tools in three treaties: The Mine Ban Treaty (original dataset), The Convention Against Torture, and the Basel Convention on Hazardous Waste Management. |
