Can International Institutions Help States to Comply with International Law? Encouraging Evidence from the European Union’s Pilot Program
Do policy solutions exist that can help member states comply with international law? We answer this question by examining a management school solution for noncompliance — proper rule interpretation. In this article, we provide the first causal evidence of this management school solution to noncompliance by showing that European Union (EU) Pilot — a program designed to facilitate negotiations between member states and the European Commission before formal infringement proceedings through clarifying rule interpretation — improved the infringement procedure’s efficiency. By resolving accidental noncompliance with EU Pilot, the Commission has streamlined the process of implementing of EU law by using the formal infringement procedure to pursue strategic noncompliance instead of accidental violations.