I n this article, we explain the role of international law in the resolution of territorial disputes from 1945 to 2000. In doing so, we focus on three outcomes of interest. First, when do states choose to revise the territorial status quo through negotiations instead of force? Second, when are states able to reach a final settlement? Third, when do states prefer a process of legal dispute resolution (i.e., adjudication or arbitration) to bilateral negotiations? To answer these questions, we argue that when the legal principles relevant to the dispute are unambiguous and clearly favor one side, a law-based focal point will emerge. This focal point, in turn, facilitates the settlement process by helping leaders overcome distribution problems, a central obstacle in reaching a final agreement. We find strong and consistent empirical support for our hypotheses regarding international law and peaceful dispute resolution. I s a legal advantage an important source of bargaining leverage for state leaders as they negotiate over security issues in international disputes? Does international law provide the foundation for the peaceful settlement of security-related disputes? In a system defined by anarchy, there are reasons to question whether international law can play a central role in the orderly and peaceful resolution of disputes when security issues are at stake for leaders. Indeed, many would argue that the shadow of military power is an ever-present influence over such bargaining processes and that international law is, therefore, not a viable substitute for military strength and credible threats of force to secure the peace. As a result, although law may have an important role to play in governing international economic relations (e.g., Goldstein, Rivers, and Tomz 2007;Simmons and Hopkins 2005;von Stein 2005;Zangl 2008), where the parties will often have strong incentives to coordinate their behavior, the role of law in settling disagreements over security-related issues is a far more contentious question among scholars and policy makers.In such situations, leaders will often have divergent preferences over how the issue should be resolved, making the identification of a mutually acceptable solution difficult. The security aspect of the dispute compounds this problem because leaders will be reluctant to sign any agreement that they believe might decrease

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In this article, we seek to advance the theoretic and empirical literature on the diversionary use of force. We argue that state leaders are more likely to engage in diversionary foreign policy behavior when opposition groups from within the winning coalition press for policy changes, but the government rejects those policy demands. Only when domestic unrest threatens a loss of political support from groups that are politically important to the leadership do we expect leaders to try and rally their support through heightened international conflict. We test this argument in an analysis of Japanese foreign policy behavior from 1890 to 1941 regarding (i) the initiation of military threats, (ii) concessions in negotiations, and (iii) the escalation of military confrontations. Drawing upon new data sets collected on Japanese domestic politics and foreign relations, we find strong support for our argument in a series of statistical tests.There is an extensive scholarly literature on the relationship between domestic and international conflict. In this paper, we focus on the ''diversionary use of force'' literature in which the central question is whether political leaders experiencing internal political turmoil are more likely to engage in confrontational foreign policy behavior. A common claim is that during such periods of domestic unrest, government leaders attempt to divert public and elite attention away from internal problems by initiating and escalating international conflicts. The argument is that leaders anticipate rallying domestic support in opposition to an external threat, which should weaken prevailing domestic political discontent 1 Authors' notes: We thank the ISQ editors, the anonymous reviewers, and members of the CIDCM Workshop on Peace and Conflict for their helpful comments. Replication materials are available at Paul Huth's Dataverse International Studies Quarterly (2010) 54, 915-937

In this article, we argue that international law can help state leaders reach a settlement in territorial disputes by suggesting a focal point for negotiations. International law is more likely to serve as a focal point when the legal principles relevant to the dispute are clear and well established and when one of the states in the dispute has a stronger legal claim to disputed territory. When these two conditions are present, we expect the state with a legal advantage to push for and receive favorable terms of settlement. In our analysis of all negotiated settlements in territorial disputes from 1945 to 2000, we find strong support for the importance of international law in influencing the terms of settlements. States with a strong legal advantage are more likely to secure favorable terms, whereas states lacking a strong legal claim are more likely to receive unfavorable terms.

In this paper, we investigate how international law shapes leaders' decisions regarding the use of force in the context of territorial disputes. We argue that if the legal principles relevant to the dispute are capable of suggesting a focal point, international law will have a powerful role to play in informing leader behavior. Specifically, if a focal point exists, the state that it favors will avoid using force and prefer negotiations when considering an initial challenge to the status quo. However, we expect focal points to have the opposite effect once states are involved in a militarized dispute. Under these circumstances, the state with a legal advantage will be more likely to escalate the level of military force. Using a series of statistical tests, we find strong support for our theoretical argument.