Why Treaties Matter: the Economic and Cultural Effects of 19th Century Treaties in China, Japan, and Korea (completed July 2013)
Theories of nation-state formation conventionally highlighted within nation struggles in economics, politics, and military as catalysts for change. The significance of external forces such as international treaties affecting domestic reforms has been largely omitted. In my dissertation, I examined how the diffusion of international law via bilateral treaties changed the economic, political, and criminal laws for nation-states, especially Asian and Latin American states. By creating a dataset of 235 19th Century treaties involving European, Asian, North American, and South American states, I examined the encounters between different legal systems, which introduced and later challenged concepts such as sovereignty, autonomy, and free-trade. I found that geographic origins of the treaty partners affected the types of treaties signed and the level of mutual benefits found in the treaties. When Asian states concluded treaties with European states, European states benefited greatly from the interchanges through extraterritorial rights and most favored nation clauses. In contrast, European and Latin American treaties guaranteed more symmetric rights to both parties, despite Asian and Latin American states having comparable levels of development in the 19th Century. With case study chapters, I recounted the transitions of China, Japan, and Korea as the influence of international law enervated China, empowered Japan, and disenfranchised Korea. Language, culture, and conflict mediated the process by which laws from abroad diffused and helped to reshape state practices.