Despite significant debate about the ability of international law to constrain state behavior, recent research points to domestic mechanisms that deter non-compliance, most notably public disapproval of governments that violate treaty agreements. However, existing studies have not explicitly differentiated two distinct, theoretically important motivations that underlie this disapproval: respect for legal obligations versus the desire to follow common global practices. We design an innovative survey experiment in Japan that manipulates information about these two potential channels directly. We examine attitudes towards four controversial practices that fall afoul of international law—same-surname marriage, whaling, hate speech regulation, and capital punishment—and find that the legal obligation cue has a stronger effect on respondent attitudes than the common practices cue. We also show subgroup differences based on partisanship and identification with global civil society. These results demonstrate that the legal nature of international law is crucial to domestic compliance pull.

尽管关于国际法限制国家行为的能力存在重大争论，但最近的研究指出了阻止不遵守行为的国内机制，最显着的是公众对违反条约协议的政府的不满。然而，现有研究并未明确区分构成这种反对的两种截然不同的、理论上重要的动机：尊重法律义务与遵循全球通用惯例的愿望。我们在日本设计了一个创新的调查实验，直接操纵有关这两个潜在渠道的信息。我们研究了人们对四种有争议的违反国际法的做法的态度——同姓婚姻、捕鲸、仇恨言论管制、和死刑——并发现法律义务提示对受访者态度的影响比一般做法提示更强。我们还显示了基于党派关系和对全球公民社会的认同的亚群差异。这些结果表明，国际法的法律性质对于国内合规拉动至关重要。