Since the time of the Protestant reformation, Western societies typically consider themselves not to be governed by divine law but based on a social contract. While all rules governing a society are part of this social contract, a country's written constitution is a central and possibly the most...

Prosecutors are immensely influential in every judicial system, yet very little is known about the impact of their organization. Here we ask two questions: (1) whether crimes committed by public officials are more likely to be prosecuted when prosecutors are independent, and (2) whether this...

It is not immediately apparent why a state would willingly abolish the death penalty and thereby lose a powerful political instrument. The fact that some states abolish capital punishment while others retain it has thus far been explained by systematic differences in the values of politicians or...

This paper explores the dynamics of press freedom around events that threaten or oust the incumbent regime of a country. While democracies on average grant the press more freedom, our theoretical starting point is that democracies and autocracies may have similar incentives to protect the power...

The proportionality principle, as the cardinal principle of international law, includes a necessity and a proportionality test, both of which rest on empirical premises. The necessity test involves an assessment of whether a legal sanction is well-suited to achieve its objective. The...

Although international sanctions are a widely used instrument of coercion, their economic effects are still not well-understood. This study uses a novel dataset and an event study approach to evaluate the economic consequences of international sanctions, thereby visualizing pre-treatment and...

Although international sanctions are a widely used instrument of coercion, their economic effects are still not fully understood. This study uses a novel dataset and an event study approach to evaluate the economic consequences of international sanctions, thereby accounting for pre-treatment...