Krebs, Shiri, The Efficacy of International Law and Its Fact-Finding Institutions: Experimental Tests (July 9, 2015). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2628967

“Do international law and institutions shape public opinion on contested events such as war crimes? Based on two novel survey experiments, this article finds that international fact-finding reports on war crimes investigations are ineffective in both (i) mitigating social disagreements over contested events; and in (ii) motivating in-group sanctioning of war criminals. First, the article demonstrates that in the U.S. context, findings of war crimes investigations trigger partisan and ideological polarization. Polarization is only marginally mitigated when the investigation is conducted by domestic as opposed to international institutions. Second, the invocation of ‘war crimes’ (instead of ‘international law violation’) has a uniformly negative effect on the perceived fairness of the investigation and willingness to accept its findings. Third, a moral, as opposed to legal, framing of the findings, increases the willingness to prosecute in-group offenders and compensate out-group victims.”