Abstract
In world politics, scholars typically view the state as an independent, spatially-bound entity with no overlapping authority with other states, and little authority beyond its borders. Though common, this image of the state is false and can be problematic for academic and popular study of world politics. This view of sovereignty is most false in the Global Commons, a grouping of four geographic domains which includes the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, the continent of Antarctica, and the whole of outer space. Throughout much of human history, the Global Commons were considered terra nullius—areas devoid of state sovereignty, having been locked off by inaccessibility to humans. However, modern states have come to possess varying degrees of control or authority in these areas. Simultaneously, states have decided that some authority in the Global Commons should be pooled into international organizations. Likewise, this authority varies from minimal to extraordinarily centralized. This dissertation seeks to understand the logic behind this arrangement of state sovereignty and international authority. This fills a gap in popular discussions of politics, as well as scholarly political science, as the situation in the Global Commons is often seen as anomalous or theoretically puzzling. I argue that these arrangements of power can be explained in two steps. First, the theory explains why states have greater or lesser “sway” in negotiations, giving those availed states a greater capacity to design treaties which fit their preferred vision. The second part of the theory addresses the design of treaties themselves. States are influenced by five design incentives, which guide those states with greater sway towards a preferred legal design regarding the degrees of state sovereignty and international authority awarded by the treaty in question. Thus, this theory can account for the process of designing law in the Global Commons, as well as the ultimate design of the treaties and conventions which govern the Global Commons today. This dissertation examines this overall research question and accompanying theory through historical process-tracing, using primary sources about state decision-making and international negotiations.
In turn, this dissertation helps us understand a keenly important part of world politics—the governing of geographies beyond international borders. By illustrating how and why these areas become the concern of states, and how those concerns generate legal outcomes, this study can help inform scholars studying international relations, international law, diplomatic history, other issues, as well as concerned global citizens. It should also help refine our scholarly and popular understanding of political geography.