Follow Up

Follow Up ¹ §

• What is follow up?
  • It is the process of monitoring the compliance or fulfilment of parties to the agreed upon promises
  • Response to non-compliance
    • Carrot: talk diplomatically to provide incentive to comply
    • Stick: to punish non-compliance (militarily, economically)
• Problem with Follow-Up
  • Some gives decision to International Courts, but that relies on states’ consent,
    • which is always with held when its a sensitive matter
  • No general principle that international rules is more important than domestic rules
  • When consent is given, enforcement mechanisms are inadequate

Early methods §

• Oath Swearing: inviting their gods to bear witness to them in an oath-swearing ceremony
  • Rulers have ceremonies to make promises
  • Rely on belief and faith to monitor
• Tangible Guarantee: sign a contract so there is material punishment for non-compliance
  • Trading land with each other as compensation, didn’t catch due to nationalism
• Man of Stature: or preserver committee who overlook the promise
  • Elected carefully with well known neutrality and honesty
  • Problem: can’t guarantee 100% of unbiasness
• Treaty of Guarantee: third party guarantor
  • Who have power and ability to punish the breaching party
  • Problem: the third party power doesn’t have incentive to help

Modern Monitoring Mechanisms §

Monitoring by experts §

• Agreements can be very technical => require experts
• experts, including scientists, engineers, and lawyers, and sometimes by national intelligence agencies
  • Mostly for Arms control agreements and UN Security Council-imposed disarmament regimes

Example

• IAEA: monitoring the use of Nuclear Weapons for peaceful use only
  • Proliferations

• Pro:
  • Technical expertise to know what is best (Nuclear Weapons, Chemical Weapons)
  • No political pressure: professional ethics, more objective, can have no impact on bilateral relations
• Cons:
  • High cost to maintain: charges member states
  • No immunities: no diplomatic protection, can’t analyze a country that maticulously without permission
    • seeing only what they want you to see
  • Inability to acquire informations for proper analysis

Monitoring by embassies §

• Diplomats in another country could act as connecting channel of monitoring between the two nations.
• British embassies and ‘Deportations with Assurances’ agreements
• Pro
  • Cheap to maintain
  • Have access to more information in the monitored country, able to gain deeper understanding
  • Have diplomatic immunity
• Cons
  • Impact ability to do their main work of maintaining bilateral relations
    • Can strain bilateral relations: doing more than is required
  • Not technical agreements
  • Not able to have technical skills like experts

Monitoring by Review meetings §

• Follow up conference, joint comission
  • Parties must compile a report occationally to present in a meeting with each other
  • Reports on progress: (the last 6 months)
• Pro
  • Trust and faith based solutions: more transparent intentions and friendly
  • Naming and shaming pressures of presenting their breaches
    • Must compile reports on time and accurately
  • Promote continuity and momentum: treaty will still be relevant about after its signing
• Cons
  • Cost of setting up meeting
  • Gaps between meetings can’t be too long

Question

• Is there a way of making sure the compiled report from each country could be reliable?
• Would this work in a relations that is strained?

References §

Footnotes §

1. DTAP-C06-Follow Up DTAP-Diplomacy theory and practice By Geoff Berridge ↩