International Organizations: Effectiveness and Accountability
25 Pages Posted: 3 May 2016
Date Written: March 2, 2016
Abstract
International organizations are legal communities in a threefold sense: They are created by law, they use law as a means of governance, and they should be governed by the rule of law. Accordingly, international law constitutes, enables, and constrains international organizations. The paper shows that (with some simplification) legal scholarship until the 1990s was primarily concerned with the constituting and enabling function of the law (thus securing the effectiveness of international organizations), while the more recent legal concern is the constraining function of the law (thus improving the accountability of international organizations). In the procedural law of organizations, a tryptichon of accountability procedures has been built: transparency, participation, and access to justice.
Keywords: international organization, effectiveness, legitimacy, accountability, International organization, effectiveness, legitimacy, accountability, global constitutionalism, global administrative law, functionalism,privatization of IOs, transparency, participation, access to justice, democracy in IOs
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