Tom Pegram

Governing the UN sustainable development goals: interactions, infrastructures, and institutions.

Three of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) concerned health. There is only one health goal in 17 proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Critiques of the MDGs included missed opportunities to realise positive interactions between goals. Here we report on an interdisciplinary analytical review of the SDG process, in which experts in different SDG areas identified potential interactions through a series of interdisciplinary workshops. This process generated a framework that reveals potential conflicts and synergies between goals, and how their interactions might be governed.

Diffusion Across Political Systems: The Global Spread of National Human Rights Institutions

This article examines the proliferation of national human rights institutions (NHRIs) and seeks to explain the drivers of this institutional innovation across contrasting political regimes. This article suggests that the NHRI phenomenon can be attributed to increasingly sophisticated international organizational platforms and three distinct, but complementary, mechanisms of diffusion: (1) coercion, (2) acculturation, and (3) persuasion. The article argues that a powerful international process of diffusion is at work and NHRIs are no longer the exclusive preserve of liberal democratic regimes. Instead NHRIs have diffused to a wide range of political systems, subjecting these human rights institutions to new and often competing demands and expectations.

Accountability in Hostile Times: the Case of the Peruvian Human Rights Ombudsman 1996–2001

This article examines the record of the Peruvian human rights ombudsman between 1996 and 2001, seeking to explain its relative effectiveness under conditions of semi-authoritarian government. It suggests that this can be attributed to three factors: (1) the robustness of the institution’s foundations; (2) the capacity of the first appointee and personnel, and; (3) the ability of the institution to build alliances which were able to enhance accountability. Drawing on O’Donnell’s theory of a new generation of horizontal accountability mechanisms – that is, appointed, as opposed to elected, institutions – it argues that the human rights ombudsman occupied a distinct position in the Peruvian political system during this period that allowed it to interconnect different actors and arenas of accountability.

Universal health coverage, priority setting, and the human right to health

As health policy-makers around the world seek to make progress towards universal health coverage they must navigate between two important ethical imperatives: to set national spending priorities fairly and efficiently; and to safeguard the right to health. These imperatives can conflict, leading some to conclude that rights-based approaches present a disruptive influence on health policy, hindering states’ efforts to set priorities fairly and efficiently. Here, we challenge this perception. We argue first that these points of tension stem largely from inadequate interpretations of the aims of priority setting as well as the right to health. We then discuss various ways in which the right to health complements traditional concerns of priority setting and vice versa. Finally, we set out a three-step process by which policy-makers may navigate the ethical and legal considerations at play.

Introduction: Global Governance in the Interregnum:

Global governance is in flux. Scholarship on the practice of global governance has reimagined it as a realm of disputes and confrontation, rather than one of interest-alignment within multilateral interstate forums. A profound sense of governance deficit is provoking critical reflection both within the corridors of power and among practitioners and scholars. A call within academic circles for renewed reflection on global governance as a practice-oriented scholarship has elicited varied responses from the international relation (IR) fraternity. In taking stock of the state of the art of ‘global governance theory’, a number of scholars have advocated for its revival to be grounded in the kind of critical reflection often absent from mainstream IR discussion. Others contest any meaningful demarcation between IR and global governance scholarship. This forum responds to a number of converging developments. Situating contributions broadly within the notion of an interregnum, it is a first cut towards a more innovative global governance research and practice-oriented agenda. We focus, in particular, on reframing the problematique of global governance from one dominated by multilateral interstate geopolitics, towards a critical reappraisal of both structure and political economy in light of the evident complexity of global governance systems.

The Language of Compromise in International Agreements

To reach agreement, international negotiators often compromise by introducing flexibility in language: they make controversial provisions vague, or add options and caveats. Does flexibility in agreement language influence subsequent state behavior? If so, do states follow both firm and flexible language somewhat, as negotiators hope? Or do governments respond strategically, increasing their energies on firmly specified tasks, and reducing their efforts on flexibly specified ones? Testing claims about agreement language is challenging, because states often reserve flexible language for controversial provisions. To make causal claims, we study an unusually drafted agreement, in which states had almost no opportunity to water down controversial provisions. We examine the influence of the 1991 Paris Principles on the Design of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), using an original dataset of 22 institutional safeguards of NHRIs in 107 countries, and case studies. We find that variations in agreement language can have large effects on state behavior, even when the entire agreement is non-binding. Both democracies and authoritarian states followed the Principles’ firm terms closely. However, authoritarian states either ignored or reduced their efforts on flexibly specified tasks. If flexibly specifying a task is no different from omitting it altogether, as our data suggest, the costs of compromise are much larger than previously believed.

What Works in Human Rights Institutions

Abstract Since 1993, the United Nations has promoted national human rights institutions (NHRIs); these have spread to almost 120 countries. We assess what makes NHRIs effective, using quantitative and qualitative methods. We find that formal institutional safeguards contribute greatly to NHRI efficacy even in authoritarian and transition regimes. Complaint-handling mandates are particularly useful because they help NHRIs build broad bases of support. Our findings show how international organizations can wield great influence with soft tools such as recommendations and peer-review mechanisms.

Towards a Third Generation of Global Governance Scholarship

Global governance is widely viewed as in crisis. Deepening interdependence of cross-border activity belies the relative absence of governance mechanisms capable of effectively tackling major global policy challenges. Scholars have an important role to play in understanding blockages and ways through. A first generation of global governance research made visible an increasingly complex and globalising reality beyond the interstate domain. A varied second generation of scholarship, spanning diverse subfields, has built upon this ‘signpost scholarship’ to generate insight into efforts to manage, bypass and even – potentially – transcend multilateral gridlock to address pressing transboundary problems. This article plots a course towards a ‘third generation’ of global governance research, serving to also introduce a special section which brings together leading scholars in the field of global governance, working across theoretical, analytical and issue-area boundaries. This collaborative endeavour proposes to advance a convergence, already underway, across a theoretically and empirically rich existing scholarship, distinguished by a concern for the complexity of global public policy delivery.

Bridging the Gap: National Human Rights Institutions and the Inter-American Human Rights System

Increasing attention is being paid to how the Inter-American Human Rights System (IAHRS) informs human rights practice. In this task, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) have emerged as potentially important intermediaries, serving as a possible ‘missing link’ in the transmission and implementation of international human rights law. The chapter begins with a discussion of NHRIs as IAHRS compliance intermediaries, with attention paid to their formal aptitude. We then highlight the formal relationship between NHRIs and the IAHRS, before specifying modalities of engagement in greater detail, drawing on the experience of NHRIs throughout Latin America. The chapter closes with a case study of the Peruvian office and an examination of what the analysis means for the future of NHRI-IAHRS relations.