Nadelman: Global Prohibition Regimes

Nadelman, Ethan A.. Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society. International Organization 44 (Autumn 1990): 479-526.

“This article analyzes how and why particular norms have evolved into global prohibition regimes and why they have proven more or less successful in suppressing deviant activities” (479-80).

“It is true that international regimes tend to reflect the economic and political interests of the dominant members of international society. But it is also true…that moral and emotional factors related to neither political nor economic advantage but instead involving religious beliefs, humanitarian sentiments, faith in universalism, compassion, conscience, paternalism, fear, prejudice, and the compulsion to proselytize can and do play important roles in the creation and the evolution of international regimes” (480).

Certain things are globally recognized as being illegitimate: rape, incest, violating sovereignty to catch criminals, human sacrifice and cannibalism, for example. The question posed by Nadelman is why do some prohibition regimes become global in scale (482)?

“Most global prohibition regimes, including those targeted against piracy, slavery, and drug trafficking, evidence a common evolutionary pattern consisting of four or five stages. During the first stage, most societies regard the targeted activity as entirely legitimate under certain conditions and with respect to certain groups of people; states often are the principal protagonists and abettors of the activity…During the second stage, the activity is redefined as a problem and as an evil—generally by international legal scholars, religious groups, and other moral entrepreneurs—and explicit government involvement in the activity is gradually delegitimized…During the third stage, regime proponents begin to agitate actively for the suppression and criminalization of the activity by all states and the formation of international conventions…If the efforts of the regime proponents prove successful, a fourth stage begins. During this stage, the activity becomes the subject of criminal laws and police action throughout much of the world, and international institutions and conventions emerge to play a coordinating role…In some cases, a fifth stage is attained, during which the incidence of the proscribed activity is greatly reduced, persisting only on a small scale and in obscure locations” (494-5).

“Success in attaining the fifth stage of regime development has thus come to depend primarily on the nature of the criminal activity and its susceptibility to criminal justice measures, both of which can be strongly influenced over time by technological developments” (486).

Nadelman then examines piracy, slavery, criminals in other sovereign territories, drug trafficking, prostitution and the killing of whales and elephants.

“Norms that evolve into global prohibition regimes typically have two features in common: they mirror the criminal laws of states that have dominated global society to date…, and they target criminal activities that in one way or another transcend national borders” (524).

Global prohibition regimes can be greatly undermined by states that choose not to conform. One of the great challenges for these regimes is whether or not non-conformist states can be made to fall in line.