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The articles studies how institutional characteristics such as soft and hard laws affect ratification. While soft laws ensures widespread participation and hard laws make shirking more difficult but ensures compliance, the article examines when and why states ratify international environmental agreements by focusing on two core treaties of the international climate change regime.

Empirical research data is developed further as a tool to study the complex issue of how international organizations (IOs) function by conducting systematic tests in large-sample environments. The insights derived indicate how and why IOs are created, function, and evolve.

The international human rights (HR) regime is vast and complex. Yet, most of what we know about it draws from a handful of agreements, often chosen for their prominence and/or perceived centrality to the HR project. This article argues that HR research needs to expand its scope to encompass all agreements in this realm, and presents a new data resource that enables scholars to accomplish that goal. Using the data, I demonstrate that the literature has painted an unrepresentative portrait of HR agreements. In addition to making comprehensive analysis possible, the database moves the literature forward by (1) taking into account important legal distinctions in the process of making treaties binding, (2) providing information on treaty design, and (3) considering relationships between agreements. I present several applications and discuss future areas of inquiry. Network analysis and the linking of treaty participation to HR outcomes are two notable areas of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]