Public accusations of international law violations often trigger a rhetorical fight over responsibility and meaning. Political costs for accused governments depend less on the facts than on a contest of messages: governments try to reshape perceptions, while international organizations (IOs) push back to defend the law.

🔎 What Was Tested

A set of survey experiments measured how different kinds of messaging alter support for punishment after allegations of wrongdoing. The experiments focused on two types of claims about violations:

• contesting the factual information about the alleged act,
• arguing the law is not appropriate in this case,
• citing extenuating or mitigating circumstances.

The samples included the US public and a global sample of diplomatic elites, and the scenarios involved alleged military aggression and human rights violations.

🧪 How the Evidence Was Collected

• Randomized survey vignettes presented allegations of wrongdoing followed by varied government messages and/or IO rebuttals.
• Outcomes measured public and elite support for punitive responses.

📌 Key Findings

• Government denials and claims about mitigating circumstances consistently reduce punitive attitudes.
• IO rebuttals are effective at countering simple denials but only partially offset claims that appeal to mitigating circumstances or challenge the law’s applicability.
• These patterns hold across the US public sample and the global diplomatic-elite sample, showing similar directional effects in both audiences.

⚖️ Why It Matters

• Political costs of noncompliance are shaped by rhetorical competition, not only by objective evidence.
• IOs can blunt some government messaging but face limits when states invoke excusing circumstances or legal contestation.
• The findings offer a framework for analyzing how strategic messaging influences enforcement and the practical reach of international law.