University of Minnesota Law School Scholarship Repository Minnesota Law Review 2010 Hard Vs. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements, and Antagonists in International Governance Gregory C. Shaffer Mark A. Pollack Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Shaffer, Gregory C. and Pollack, Mark A., "Hard Vs. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements, and Antagonists in International Governance" (2010). Minnesota Law Review. 491. https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr/491 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Minnesota Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Minnesota Law Review collection by an authorized administrator of the Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Article Hard vs. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements, and Antagonists in International Governance Gregory C. Shaffer and Mark A. Pollackt I. The Canonical Literature on International Hard and Soft Law ..................................... 712 A. Definitions of Hard and Soft Law ........ ......... 712 B. Advantages and Disadvantages of Hard and Soft Law as Alternatives .................. ........ 717 C. The Interaction of Hard and Soft Law as Complements ............................... 721 II. Theorizing International Hard- and Soft-Law Interaction: Power, Distributive Conflict, Regime Complexes, and Implementation ................... 727 A. The Challenge of Power .................. ..... 728 B. The Challenge of Distributive Conflict ....... ..... 730 C. The Challenge of Regime Complexes .................. 737 D. The Challenge of Implementation ........ ......... 741 III. Hard- and Soft-Law Interaction as Antagonists: The Example of Genetically Modified Foods ....... ........ 743 A. Hard- and Soft-Law Interaction as Antagonists ........ 743 t Gregory Shaffer is Melvin C. Steen Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School, and Mark Pollack is Jean Monnet Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science, Temple University.