There are three types of international regimes: spontaneous, imposed, and negotiated.

Spontaneous regimes are unplanned; they emerge out of common behaviors of actors.

Imposed regimes are purposely constructed by a dominant actor.

Negotiated regimes are those regimes “characterized by conscious efforts to agree on their major provisions, explicit consent on the part of individual participants, and formal expression of the results… It is important to differentiate among several types of negotiated orders that occur in the international system. Such orders will take the form either of ‘constitutional’ contracts or of legislative bargains”