On the contention, crisis and resilience of international institutions

Workshop and conference panel

Project manager: Prof. Dr. Armin von Bogdandy

Project description

The project examines the impact of the current crisis of universalist normative systems on the authority and legitimacy of international institutions.

After the end of the Cold War, the number of international institutions, including international courts, and their activities reached unprecedented levels. These developments raised the question of what authority international institutions exercise or may exercise. Researchers responded with drafts for a global constitutional or administrative law as well as with a public law conceptualization of international law, the so-called international public authority (“International Public Authority” – the precursor project in the Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders”).

In the meantime, however, the international order has changed dramatically. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from international agreements, the rise of nationalist populism and Brexit are just a few examples of a regressive trend. What once seemed self-evident – the spread of institutional institutions and the universality of democracy and human rights – is now being challenged on several fronts. It is therefore not surprising that the most systematic and severe nation-state attacks are targeting institutions, agreements and courts in the areas of international economic law, human rights protection, international climate policy and international criminal law.

However, this trend does not mean the end of multilateral governance. Most international institutions and courts continue to fulfill their mandate, even under increasing financial and political constraints. In certain, sometimes highly controversial areas of international law, such as international tax and migration law, new forms of exercising authority can even be observed.

The project aims to reflect on these observations theoretically and process them empirically in a comparative manner. Scholars from the fields of international law, international relations, political philosophy and sociology will jointly analyze these phenomena under three main topics:

• Contestation: To what extent is international public violence currently being called into question? What legal and political attacks can be observed? What differences and similarities can be observed in the various legal regimes? Does the contestation of multilateral institutions differ between democratic and autocratic states?
• Crisis: Under what conditions does the questioning of multilateralism lead to the break-up of international alliances? What legal forms does this crisis take? What new forms of integration (counter-trends) can be observed, e.g. South-South cooperation or in Asia?
• Resilience: How resilient are international institutions in the face of attacks by member states? Is the exercise of public power changing? What are the legal requirements and limits of different adaptive responses?

Two events will be held in the course of 2019:

November 28-29, 2019
Workshop
“The End of International Public Authority? Contestation, Crisis, and Resilience of International Institutions”

July 2, 2019
Panel
“What doesn’t kill it makes it stronger? The resilience of the Inter-American human rights system in an age of backlash”
as part of the annual conference of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S)