International norms, compliance and enforcement

When considering compliance and enforcement in the context of disarmament and non-proliferation obligations, it is useful to take a closer look at the nature of these obligations.

In many cases, they will be codified in international agreements as legal norms. States parties to such agreements are then bound by international treaty law to comply with these norms. However, international disarmament and non-proliferation norms can also exist beyond treaties. They can take the form of bi- or multilateral political understandings, general expectations of acceptable behaviour and international customary rules. One example for the first category is the Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCOC), which is a politically binding ‘set of general principles, modest commitments, and limited confidence building measures’. An example of norms serving as general expectations of appropriate behaviour can be seen, for instance, in the reactions to the nuclear tests India and Pakistan carried out in 1998.

In this case, neither state was a party to the NPT or the CTBT (which has not yet entered into force anyway), so technically the tests did not violate any treaty norms. Yet, there was widespread international condemnation of the tests, including by means of a unanimous UNSC resolution (1172 (1998)). Lastly, the prohibition of the use of chemical and biological weapons is considered a customary international rule, which means it is legally binding on all states and not only for the signatories of the respective treaties. These examples illustrate that compliance and enforcement also need to be considered beyond international treaties.

It should be noted that the relationship between compliance and international norms, whether codified in treaties or not, is complex. According to norm research in International Relations, violations of a norm can have negative effects on it, but they do not automatically weaken that norm or render it obsolete. Rather, the effect of norm violations on a norm depends on the context and specific circumstances of the violation and reactions to it, among other factors. Norms can in fact be robust even in the face of suspected or proven non-compliance.¹ For example, if a violator tries to deny or justify their actions, or shifts the blame to others, or if non-compliant behaviour is called out and condemned as unacceptable, this can actually reaffirm the validity of the norm. Likewise, if other states react to non-compliance, for example by applying compliance procedures as foreseen in a treaty, or by imposing sanctions on the norm violator, this can also reinforce the norm. However, if non-compliance is allowed to repeatedly occur with no consequences or reactions, this may over time contribute to the erosion of the norm. Reactions to non-compliance, both rhetorical and in practice, and enforcement of the norms in question, including disarmament and non-proliferation obligations, are hence crucial elements in any effort to maintain these norms.