This study is the first to offer explanations for compliance with G7 commitments by identifying the patterns, explaining the causes and exploring the processes of this compliance from 1988-1995. It provides the only systematic review of the G7's compliance record in the post-Cold War globalizing system of the 1990s and in regard to important environment and development commitments that have often dominated the Summit's agenda during this third cycle of summitry. It draws on explanatory factors for Summit compliance from three bodies of international relations theory-including regime theory, concert theory and the recent extension of regime theory to embrace the effects of domestic political institutions.