The Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) Project Supplementary Data Set: Multilateral Treaties of Pacific Settlement (MTOPS)

The ICOW multilateral treaties of pacific settlement data set includes signature and ratification status for all regional and global treaties that explicitly call for the pacific settlement of (political) disputes among their members. This data set is expected to be used primarily to test the proposition that the regional or global institutional context -- as indicated by joint membership in such an organization -- should affect states' choices of actions in attempting to settle their territorial, river, maritime, or other issues. Over thirty regional and global treaties and organizations are included in the current version of this data set; more details on each organization's charter are provided in the codebook and documentation. This data set was originally compiled by Paul R. Hensel, director of the Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) research project at Florida State University. The variables on reservations attached to acceptance of the ICJ optional clause were added by Jackie Rubin and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell. The Multilateral Treaties of Pacific Settlement (MTOPS) data set is a compilation of global and regional institutions -- including both intergovernmental organizations and multilate ral treaties -- that call for the pacific settlement of disputes among their members (or signatories). This was originally mean t to allow empirical testing of the theoretical expectation that joint membership in such organizations should affect the settlement of political disputes among member states (i.e., that the regional and/or global institutional context can promote the peaceful settlement of disputes and can discourage resort to militarized means by states involved in a dispute). A later expansion of the data set allowed it to address the notion of a territorial integrity norm, as discussed in Zacher's 2001 IO article (which suggests that there is an increasingly prominent global norm against the revision of territorial borders).