Empowering to constrain: Procedural checks in international organizations

Abstract

Why would weak states accept rules which authorize strong states to take coercive action against them? I argue that, in some cases, this is a way of creating constraints over the exercise power in the form of procedural checks, or rules delineating the process through which power can legitimately be exercised. If stronger states become willing to exercise power against weak states in the absence of rules formally authorizing their behavior, this presents their actions as the new status quo. In response, weak states can attempt to re-establish constraints over the exercise of power by formally sanctioning unwanted actions, but doing so alongside procedural checks. To assess this argument, I examine the addition of a human rights suspension clause to the Lomé Convention, an aid and preferential trade agreement between the European Economic Community and the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) group of states. The ACP states accepted a suspension clause after nearly twenty years of arguing that such a clause was paternalistic and violated the norm of non-interference. Explanations for this decision that point to one-sided dominance of IOs by the strong or straightforward support for policies on the part of the weak cannot account for important dynamics, including continued objections to the practice of suspension by ACP states and the willingness of European states to accept and utilize procedural checks.