The Politics of Regional International Organizations: A New Dawn for the Political Legitimacy of International Law

Abstract

International lawyers can no longer afford to ignore the growth of regional orderings under the umbrella of international law and their political consequences. There are, the author argues, at least two concerns rio s may help us address when thinking about the future of the international institution of (States) peoples and organising it to secure more political legitimacy: sovereignty and democracy. With respect to sovereignty qua ultimate political authority, first, rio s enable us to consider the virtues of multiple and shared external sovereignty in international relations and the possibility of a regional ordering of dispersed sovereignty as a shield to protect the same albeit multiply reinstituted peoples qua publics against domination, and this both inside their States and in their international relations. Second, with respect to democracy, rio s enable us to approach international democracy, and especially international democratic representation, in a pluralistic albeit systemic way: peoples may be reinstituted into different publics by multiple institutions over time, such as their States, but also by one or more rio s in their region, and giving those representative institutions a role in international law-making could strengthen political equality by compensating demographic and power imbalances between States while also requiring those rio s to become more egalitarian and accountable in return.