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Full-Text Articles in Law
Monitoring Compliance With Unratified Treaties: The Ilo Experience, Laurence R. Helfer
Monitoring Compliance With Unratified Treaties: The Ilo Experience, Laurence R. Helfer
Law and Contemporary Problems
Helfer challenges the conventional wisdom that the delegation of authority to the International Labor Organization (ILO) involves only modest sovereignty costs. Heifer explains that the ILO has increasingly exercised the authority to monitor compliance with unratified labor treaties and recommendations, and that the exercise of this authority has significant effects. He further notes that this type of monitoring authority is not confined to the ILO, but in fact exists in several other international institutions and issue areas. The case of the ILO therefore suggests that some important delegations arise and thrive outside of the formal channels of authority. This makes …
When, What, And Why Do States Choose To Delegate?, Barbara Koremenos
When, What, And Why Do States Choose To Delegate?, Barbara Koremenos
Law and Contemporary Problems
Koremenos demonstrates that international delegation is an important and nontrivial empirical phenomenon. Using an extensive data set created from the United Nations Treaty Series, she finds that almost half of all international agreements involve delegation of some kind. By exploring the institutional design choices of international delegation, she finds that dispute resolution is the most commonly delegated function and often involves externally delegating authority to an existing arbitration tribunal or an international court. Furthermore, she finds that external delegation in particular increases with the existence of complex cooperation problems such as enforcement and uncertainty and with the heterogeneity and number …
Delegation Success And Policy Failure: Collective Delegation And The Search For Iraqi Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Michael J. Tierney
Delegation Success And Policy Failure: Collective Delegation And The Search For Iraqi Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Michael J. Tierney
Law and Contemporary Problems
Tierney argues that international delegation can have important consequences, even for powerful states. In particular, he contends that the US delegation of inspection authority to United Nations weapons inspectors and to the International Atomic Energy Association after the Gulf War of 1990-91 entailed significant sovereignty costs by affecting the timing and costliness of the subsequent 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Among other things, he notes that the inspectors' independent behavior made it much more difficult for the US to assemble the type of multilateral coalition that would share the costs as it had in the earlier Gulf War. Tierney also …
Sovereignty And Delegation In International Organizations, David Epstein, Sharyn O'Halloran
Sovereignty And Delegation In International Organizations, David Epstein, Sharyn O'Halloran
Law and Contemporary Problems
No abstract provided.
International Delegation And State Sovereignty, Oona A. Hathaway
International Delegation And State Sovereignty, Oona A. Hathaway
Law and Contemporary Problems
Hathaway rebuts the claim that state sovereignty almost always suffers when states delegate authority to international institutions. Critics of delegation err, she contends, by overemphasizing the costs but losing sight of some of the substantial benefits of cooperation. She considers the challenge to sovereignty posed by international delegation by focusing on recent debates over the influence of international legal commitments on domestic governance.
The Globalization Of Health And Safety Standards: Delegation Of Regulatory Authority In The Sps Agreement Of The 1994 Agreement Establishing The World Trade Organization, Tim Buthe
Law and Contemporary Problems
Buthe examines why states delegated regulatory authority in the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures, an integral part of the founding treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Buthe argues that, to explain this case of international delegation, principal-agent theory must be complemented by an analysis of cost-benefit calculations of the relevant domestic interest groups. Given these domestic interests, governments decided to institutionalize international cooperation on SPS measures outside of the WTO because they believed that such delegation would minimize the political costs of the loss of policymaking autonomy. Buthe notes, however, that in retrospect it …
Negotiate Or Litigate? Effects Of Wto Judicial Delegation On U.S. Trade Politics, Judith L. Goldstein, Richard H. Steinberg
Negotiate Or Litigate? Effects Of Wto Judicial Delegation On U.S. Trade Politics, Judith L. Goldstein, Richard H. Steinberg
Law and Contemporary Problems
Goldstein and Steinberg argue that the World Trade Organization Appellate Body has been able to use its authority to engage in judicial lawmaking to reduce trade barriers in ways that would not otherwise have been possible through negotiation. This lawmaking authority was not the result of a purposeful delegation; rather, it was an unintended byproduct of the creation of an underspecified set of rules and procedures. There is nevertheless a high rate of compliance with Appellate Body decisions because decentralized enforcement can induce domestic importers to lobby for trade liberalization. In the US, this judicial lawmaking may also allow the …
Delegating To International Courts: Self-Binding Vs. Other-Binding Delegation, Karen J. Alter
Delegating To International Courts: Self-Binding Vs. Other-Binding Delegation, Karen J. Alter
Law and Contemporary Problems
Alter highlights the diverse nature of international delegations to courts. She argues that the roles and tasks delegated to international courts increasingly mimic in form and content the broad variety of tasks delegated to courts in liberal democracies, but that delegating these tasks to international courts is fundamentally different than delegating them to domestic courts because of the implications for national sovereignty. Whereas international courts were initially established to be dispute-resolution bodies, they now also perform administrative review, enforcement, and even constitutional review. Alter explains how each of these judicial roles binds other actors, binds states, or both.
The Concept Of International Delegation, Curtis A. Bradley, Judith G. Kelley
The Concept Of International Delegation, Curtis A. Bradley, Judith G. Kelley
Law and Contemporary Problems
Bradley and Kelley define and clarify the concept of international delegation from both a legal and a social-science perspective. They begin by presenting a definition of international delegation as a grant of authority by two or more states to an international body to make decisions or take actions. They also identify eight types of authority that states may grant: legislative, adjudicative, regulatory, monitoring and enforcement, agenda-setting, research and advice, policy implementation, and redelegation. International bodies will often exercise more than one type of authority, and there will sometimes be uncertainties about whether a particular type of authority fails into a …