This dissertation sheds light on the reputational theory of international law, a theory used to explain state behavior in relation to international law. Due to concerns for their reputation, it is argued, countries will fulfill their commitments, not wanting to be excluded from cooperative opportunities that come out of commitment-making in the future. Existing studies of international law struggle to identify the effect of international law due to endogeneity resulting from the fact that international law is by-and-large consent based.The dissertation uses non-consent based international law to address the selection problem. Specifically, the dissertation focuses on international legal obligations coming out of the Security Council. Some Security Council resolutions are binding for all UN member states, even though just a handful of UN members participate in creating the resolutions. Such law has the advantage of yielding clear groups for comparison — law makers versus law receivers — in members of the Security Council versus non-members. Also, participation or not is argued to be orthogonal to issues voted on at the Security Council.Consistent with reputational theory, I find that states that have a participatory role in creating a resolution are more likely to comply with procedural aspects of the resolution. However, they do not differ in substantive compliance compared to their non-participatory counterparts. In a survey of elites, participants are more likely to worry about future participation with a country that participates on the Council but does not comply, than with a country that does not participate, and does not comply, which is consistent with reputational theory.
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