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Posner and Sykes Book Symposium: Comment by Emilie Hafner-Burton and David Victor

[Emilie M. Hafner-Burton is a Professor at the School of International Relationship and Pacific Studies, IR/PS, at the University of California San Diego and Director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. David G. Victor is a Professor at the School of International Relationship and Pacific Studies, IR/PS, at the University of California San Diego and Director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation.] Over the last decade there has been a surge in scholarship on the economics of international law (see Goldsmith & Posner, Posner & Sykes, Guzman and Pauwelyn). On almost every topic in international law—from the practical import of customary law to the repayment of “odious debt” to the laws of war—the economic perspective offers important insights into how international law actually works. At last there’s one book to introduce the basic concepts and illustrate their utility.  Law students and academics, alike, will welcome Eric Posner and Alan Sykes’ Economic Foundations of International Law. This new book will likely gain most of its readership in law schools, but for scholars the book’s greatest value may lie in helping to deepen communication between political scientists and lawyers who have been part of the “empirical turn” in research on international law. Posner and Sykes—and the method of economic analysis of law—will help political scientists disentangle the many ways that law affects behavior and actually measure those effects.  While quantitative empirical research will never reveal the full color of why states create and honor international law, this line of collaboration between lawyers and political scientists can help reveal exactly which types of international laws actually help states advance their interests and solve collective policy problems.