Armin von Bogdandy

Developing the Publicness of Public International Law: Towards a Legal Framework for Global Governance Activities

The research project which this article introduces, proposes a distinctly public law approach to the deep transformation in the conduct of public affairs epitomized by the term global governance. We were intrigued to find in many policy fields an increasing number of international institutions playing an active and often crucial role in decision-making and policy implementation, sometimes even affecting individuals. Thus, a private real estate sale in Berlin is blocked by a decision of the UN SecurityCouncil Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee; the construction of a bridge in Dresden is legally challenged because the affected part of the Elbe river valley had been included on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage; or educational policies most relevant to our children are profoundly reformed due to the OECD Pisa rankings. These examples illustrate that governance activities of international institutions may have a strong legal or factual impact on domestic issues. This calls upon scholars of public law to lay open the legal setting of such governance activities, to find out how, and by whom, they are controlled, and to develop legal standards for ensuring that they satisfy contemporary expectations for legitimacy. This article sketches out the objective, argument and approach of our project and proceeds in three steps: a first step specifies the object of analysis (B.); a second step discusses how the phenomena thus identified should be approached in a legal perspective (C.); in a third and final step, we explain the concrete methodology of our project (D.).

The Exercise of Public Authority by International Institutions

Concept.- Developing the Publicness of Public International Law: Towards a Legal Framework for Global Governance Activities.- From Public International Law to International Public Law: A Comment on the #x201C Public Authority#x201D of International Institutions and the #x201C Publicness#x201D of their Law.- To Tame and to Frame.- International Bureaucracies from a Political Science Perspective #x2013 Agency, Authority and International Institutional Law.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivduals - Decisions.- The UN Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee: Emerging Principles of International Institutional Law for the Protection of Individuals?.- WIPO#x2019 s International Registration of Trademarks: An International Administrative Act Subject to Examination by the Designated Contracting Parties.- International Institutions and Individualized Decision-Making: An Example of UNHCR#x2019 s Refugee Status Determination.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivduals - Recommendations.- Effective Governance through Decentralized Soft Implementation: The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivduals - Information.- The Administration of Information in International Administrative Law #x2013 The Example of Interpol.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivdual States - Decisions.- Flexibility and Legitimacy #x2014 The Emissions Trading System under the Kyoto Protocol.- The UNESCO Regime for the Protection of World Heritage as Prototype of an Autonomy-Gaining International Institution.- The UNESCO Regime for the Protection of World Heritage.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivdual States - Recommendations.- Regulating Minority Issues through Standard-Setting and Mediation: The Case of the High Commissioner on National Minorities.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivdual States - Information.- Governance through Promotion and Persuasion: The 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.- The WTO Committee on Trade in Financial Services: The Exercise of Public Authority within an Informational Forum.- The Exercise of Public Authority through General Instruments: Secondary Law.- The Administration of the Vocabulary of International Trade: The Adaptation of WTO Schedules to Changes in the Harmonized System.- Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) #x2013 Conservation Efforts Undermine the Legality Principle.- The Exercise of Public Authority through General Instruments: International Public Standards.- Legal Challenges of Non-binding Instruments: The Case of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.- Why Would International Administrative Activity Be Any Less Legitimate? #x2014 A Study of the Codex Alimentarius Commission.- The Exercise of Public Authority through General Instruments: Public Authority through Private Law Instruments.- ICANN #x2013 Governance by Technical Necessity.- International Administration of Holocaust Compensation: The International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC).- Cross-Cutting Analyses.- Inside Relative Normativity: From Sources to Standard Instruments for the Exercise of International Public Authority.- Goldmann Variations.- General Principles of International Public Authority: Sketching a Research Field.- Is There a Global Administrative Law?.- Procedures of Decision-Making and the Role of Law in International Organizations.- The Contributions by Jochen von Bernstorff and by Maja Smrkolj.- The Enforcement Authority of International Institutions.- The Enforcement Authority of International Institutions #x2013 Some Remarks and Suggestions for Further Analysis.- Holding International Institutions Accountable: The Complementary Role of Non-Judicial Oversight Mechanisms and Judicial Review.- International Composite Administration: Conceptualizing Multi-Level and Network Aspects in the Exercise of International Public Authority.- International Composite Administration.- Legitimacy of International Law and the Exercise of Administrative Functions: The Example of the International Seabed Authority, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and International Fisheries Organizations.- Context.- The Internationalization of Administrative Relations as a Challenge for Administrative Law Scholarship.- Procedural Due Process of Law Beyond the State.

General Principles of International Public Authority: Sketching a Research Field

The term principle is ubiquitous in the thematic studies and the crosscutting studies of this research project on the exercise of public authority by international institutions. Apparently its legal analysis and normative framing is difficult to achieve without principles. This is no specificity of this undertaking: Legal research on the public authority of international institutions regularly deals with the issue of principles. General principles for all international institutions are of specific interest as they might tie the various institutions into one legal universe. Yet, precisely their variety, even heterogeneity raises the question if such principles can be anything but “stars which give little light because they are so high.” This quotation from Francis Bacon’s “On the Advancement of Learning” precedes Edward Carr’s classical study on the problems of a sweeping, principled and idealistic approach to international phenomena. The aim of this contribution is therefore not so much a discussion of individual principles, which is done in other studies of this research project. A first aim is to study more closely how principles are used in legal discourses (B.). I will distinguish between structural principles, guiding principles and legal principles. This makes it easier to grasp the various meanings and scholarly agendas pursued under the term principle. In section C. I discuss the impact of emerging principles of international authority on the general evolution of public international law and its scholarship in times of global governance. Thereby I hope to add further support to our general approach and to prepare the ground for the most difficult part of this contribution, the one on the development of general principles (D.). In section D., I will first review possible legal bases of general principles (D.I.), suggesting internal constitutionalization as the best path in light of the heterogeneity and fragmentation of international law. Second (D.II.), I will discuss the roles of international and domestic judges in that process, stressing their common, but differentiated responsibility. Eventually, some individual principles of international institutions will be outlined in light of the principles of the European Union (E.).

Founding Principles of EU Law. A Theoretical and Doctrinal Sketch

The article provides the groundwork for the constitutional law approach to EU legal scholarship. It stresses the special role of the basic principles of the EU legal order, explaining their dimensions, foundations and their functions. First of all, legal principles play a special role in ordering the legal material into a meaningful whole, a function the author entitles doctrinal constructivism. Furthermore, they can supply arguments for the creative application of the law and can at the same time help to maintain and further legal infrastructure. The author also explains their legal and integrative aspects and their constitutional characteristics and illustrates their significance for establishing unity of EU law in light of heterogeneous primary law.

Beyond Dispute: International Judicial Institutions as Lawmakers

The increasing number of international judicial institutions, producing an ever-growing stream of decisions, has been one of the dominant features of the international legal order of the past two decades. The shift in quantity has gone hand in hand with a transformation in quality. Today, it is no longer convincing to only think of international courts in their role of settling disputes.

On the Functions of International Courts: An Appraisal in Light of Their Burgeoning Public Authority

This contribution presents international judicial institutions as multifunctional actors against the background of a traditional understanding, which sees just one function: settling disputes. The traditional, one-dimensional understanding eclipses other important functions that many international courts do actually perform in contexts of global governance and it underrates problems in their legitimation. In order to appreciate international adjudications’ manifold contributions to social interaction, the paper first identifies three more functions beyond dispute settlement: the stabilization of normative expectations, law-making, and the control as well as legitimation of authority exercised by others. It then places these functions within broader basic understandings of international courts, which respectively picture them as instruments of the parties in a state-centred world order, as organs of a value-based international community, and as institutions of specific legal regimes. The distinct problems that each of these basic understanding faces lead to the contours of a new paradigm for the study of international courts as actors exercising public authority. The present functional analysis ultimately helps to refine both the phenomenon and normative questions.

On the democratic legitimation of international judicial lawmaking

While the introductory contribution addressed the questions and definitions of our research into judicial lawmaking, this concluding chapter discusses strategies regarding the justification of international judicial lawmaking that our introduction sought to capture and that the volume set out to present. How can one square such lawmaking with the principle of democracy? A first response could be to negate the phenomenon. If there were no such thing as judicial lawmaking, there would evidently be no need for its justification. This response, though unconvincing, merits attention all the same because, according to the traditional and still widespread view of international dispute settlement, international decisions flow from the consent of the state parties to the dispute, both from the consensual basis of the applicable law and from consent-based jurisdiction.

Sovereign Debt Restructurings as Exercises of International Public Authority: Towards a Decentralized Sovereign Insolvency Law

This paper argues that sovereign debt restructurings as agreed between defaulting states and their multilateral, bilateral, or private creditors constitute exercises of international public authority. Their authoritative character results from their effects on the citizens of the defaulting state, especially through adjustment programs. They also affect taxpayers in lending states as well as shareholders of commercial creditors. Their public and international character derives from their legal basis in hard or soft public international law.As a consequence of their qualification as exercises of international public authority, sovereign debt restructurings need to be framed by public law in order to ensure their legitimacy. This paper is based on a discursive approach to legitimacy and shows how legal scholarship might promote the development of such a public law framework.The paper then proposes a set of legal principles for sovereign debt restructurings. Some of them might already exist de lege lata, while others should be understood as proposals de lege ferenda. Legal scholarship is especially useful for developing procedural requirements, while substantive issues require a political decision, with the exception of the need to respect fundamental human rights. Most importantly, however, the qualification of sovereign debt restructurings as exercises of public authority requires domestic and international courts and tribunals to defer to them and to stay proceedings as long as such restructurings are being negotiated or implemented. Domestic and international courts and tribunals might thereby control the legitimacy of these exercises of public authority.

International Composite Administration: Conceptualizing Multi-Level and Network Aspects in the Exercise of International Public Authority

The administration of the traditional nation-state used to operate as a rather closed system to the outside world. Today, cooperation between the public authorities of different States and between States and international bodies is a common phenomenon. Yet the characteristics and mechanics of such cooperation can hardly be understood using the concepts domestic public law or public international law currently on offer. Conventional concepts, such as federalism, confederalism or Statecentered “realism” hardly fathom the complexity of interactions or reflect the changed role of the State, while more recent concepts, such as multi-level systems or networks, seem to encompass only parts of the phenomena at hand. Given this void, we propose to explore the notion of “composite administration” (Verbundverwaltung) and argue that it offers a concept which can combine more coherently the seemingly diverging legal elements of cooperation and hierarchy that distinguish administrative action in what often is called a multi-level administrative system. Even though the concept of composite administration was originally designed and further developed with respect to the largely federal European administrative space, we suggest testing the concept in the wider context of international cooperation. We believe that it offers valuable insights and raises critical questions, even though we do not intend to insinuate any proto-federal prospects of the institutions discussed in this paper.

ARIO and Human Rights Protection: Leaving the Individual in the Cold

International organizations may be regarded as international public authorities, since their acts increasingly impinge on individuals, private associations, enterprises, States, or public institutions. However, this development has not been followed by the creation of a corresponding system of international legal responsibility for international organizations. Some are even seen as a risk to fundamental rights. The Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations (ARIO) bring some progress in this regard, but nevertheless leave the victims of human rights violations largely overlooked. The article analyses some of the achievements and gaps of ARIO with respect to human rights protection and explores the possibilities for victims of human rights violations to seek remedies against international organizations.