The limits of liberal international law in Southeast Asia: Power asymmetry, strategic salience, and compliance in territorial disputes

Abstract

This paper examines variation in compliance with liberal international law across Southeast Asian territorial disputes. It argues that the constraining effects of legal rulings depend on the interaction between power asymmetry and the political costs of compliance. Drawing on four cases, Pedra Branca, Sipadan-Ligitan, Preah Vihear, and the South China Sea arbitration, the paper identifies a graded pattern: law has greater effect when power asymmetry is limited and the political costs of compliance remain manageable. As asymmetry and the costs associated with legal defeat increase, compliance becomes more fragile, contested, or absent. Under extreme asymmetry, rulings are least likely to alter state behavior. The paper advances an asymmetry-centered account of legal compliance, showing that liberal international law can clarify claims and facilitate settlement, but its capacity to alter state behavior is conditioned by hierarchy and by political costs that arise when legal obligations conflict with strategically or domestically salient interests.