International Organizations and the Rule of Law: Challenges Ahead
Files
Description
This essay revisits a few of the themes canvassed in the Xiamen General Course that I was honored to give in the summer of 2013. Inter-governmental organizations (IOS), defined here to include those entities that aspire to global and not only regional reach such as those of UN system, have changed how the international community makes, interprets, and enforces international law. As is well known, the world has “turned to institutions” at least in the course of the 20th century. Most recently, that turn includes increasing reliance, albeit not for in all regions or for all states, to forms of international adjudication, including 24 permanent international courts and other quasi-judicial adjudicators such as committees under human rights treaties. These international institutions have helped to change the sources of international obligation, the process by which international law is produced, the types of actors involved in such processes, the ways legal rules are enforced or implemented, as well as international law’s effectiveness. At the same time, those who established these institutions sought to use them to de-politicize international disputes and promote a turn to the rule of law at the international level. This essay connects these two developments, suggesting that the IO challenge to legal positivism relates to the daunting difficulties faced by those seeking to establish the “international rule of law.” It argues that, paradoxically, the ways that IOS have sought to make law highlight the looming challenges these IOS face with respect to realizing and subjecting themselves to the rule of law. If today we question, with good reason, whether the ‘international rule of law’ exists, one reason for doubts may be the ways that IOS engage in ‘law-making.’ Part 1 below describes the basic tenets of legal positivism and how institutionalized international legal processes deviate from those tenets–and common understandings of the sources of international legal obligation enumerated in the ICJ’s Statute. Part 2 describes the traditional elements of the rule of law, compares these to the legal products produced by IOS, and identifies the difficulties that IOS face in satisfying rule of law expectations that they themselves have generated. A brief conclusion addresses the resulting ‘rule of law’ challenges that IOS face.
Source Publication
A New International Legal Order
Source Editors/Authors
Chia-Jui Cheng
Publication Date
2016
Recommended Citation
Alvarez, José E., "International Organizations and the Rule of Law: Challenges Ahead" (2016). Faculty Chapters. 60.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/60
