Theories of States' Compliance with International Law:A Question of Persuasion

It is a commonly held belief that States, almost all of the time, comply with the norms of international law. The international system lacks a central mechanism to ensure enforcement of international law, but why despite this fact, States do comply with the rules of international law? This is a peculiar question which has puzzled many thinkers in the fields of international relations and politics as well as international law. From a particular viewpoint, the issue of compliance of States with international law could be studied through three different mechanisms: cost and benefit analysis, acculturation, and persuasion. Each of these mechanisms in isolation is unable to describe the reason for which,in each case,States comply with international law; hence being complementary. Among these mechanisms, the role of persuasion is peculiar because this particular mechanism produces compliance with international law on its own and also through the other mechanisms.