Law without Sanctions by Michael Barkun, a summary of the book

Law without Sanctions by Michael Barkun describes customs that are behavioral patterns that transform into norms and are set as rules or laws. The book hardly describes law without sanctions as the title suggests. In fact, law and its effectiveness is hardly mentioned in the book 'till the very end. However, the book mentions the valuable meaning of law and the development of law in his view. Customs can be looked as behaviors, which most …

…believes that sanctions are very effective and have especially been effective in international related conflicts. For example, the sanctions imposed during World War II, the Iran hostage sanctions, the trade and financial sanctions against China, and the ongoing Iraqi sanctions were successful means of attaining well-defined foreign policy objectives. Sanctions as foreign policy tools affect the direct actions of states and are intended to target violators of the law, which is why sanctions are effective.