Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PRIVIGO (Intergovernmental Organizations between Mission and Market: International Institutional Law and the Private Sector)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2023-12-31
PRIVIGO investigates relations between (public) international organizations and the private sector, and does so along three dimensions. First, it looks at funding or co-funding or international organizations by the private sector, and aims to trace how this is (or should be) legally regulated. Second, it examines the role of international organizations as market actors, procuring as well as selling goods and services, and aiming to trace how these activities are (or should be) legally regulated. Third, it interrogates the distributive effects of decision-making by international organizations, as many decisions will come with winners and losers.
The broader ambition is not merely to chart these three dimensions, but also think through what this means for regular conceptions of international organizations and how this might affect the law governing these organizations. To this end PRIVIGO, starting from the observation that there is more to international organizations than the traditionally emphasized relation to their member states, is developing what may be termed a ‘political economy of international organizations law’, under the label ‘suprafunctionalism’. In doing so, PRIVIGO aims to produce a historically informed perspective on international organizations that brings law, politics and economics together.
The problem this addresses is therewith to some extent a theoretical (or even philosophical) problem: the standard perspective on international organizations hides from view that international organizations have come to be important political actors in their own right, independent from member state preferences. Given the pivotal role of international organizations as the main institutions of global governance, exercising considerable public authority, it stands to reason to think of a different perspective. The perspective PRIVIGO is in the process of developing, taking into account the connections with and to the private sector, does not view them as automatically guaranteeing the ‘salvation of mankind’ (if only…), but takes international organizations serious as actors in political-economic struggles, and as actively engaged, however unintentionally perhaps, in the authoritative allocation of values.
The overall objectives closely connect to the work actually being done. One of these objectives is to collect information on how many international organizations are structured, what they do, and how it affects third parties, in particular the private sector; as it is, the discipline knows far too little about the vast majority of international organizations.
A second objective is to document how contacts with the private sector are regulated: how does this take place? Under what conditions? Are there legal safeguards, or judicial remedies? How – if at all - does the involvement of the private sector in such activities as funding translate into the governance of international organizations, and what does it entail for accountability? Here the aim is to describe the applicable legal framework with some precision.
And a third objective resides in the process of re-thinking international organizations law, both investigating the weaknesses and blind spots of approaches to international organizations and developing new theoretical resources. If the law has long been premised on the idea that the only relevant partners of the international organization are its member states, then surely the contact to the outside world (including the private sector) must come to affect the underlying legal and theoretical frameworks.
The broader ambition is not merely to chart these three dimensions, but also think through what this means for regular conceptions of international organizations and how this might affect the law governing these organizations. To this end PRIVIGO, starting from the observation that there is more to international organizations than the traditionally emphasized relation to their member states, is developing what may be termed a ‘political economy of international organizations law’, under the label ‘suprafunctionalism’. In doing so, PRIVIGO aims to produce a historically informed perspective on international organizations that brings law, politics and economics together.
The problem this addresses is therewith to some extent a theoretical (or even philosophical) problem: the standard perspective on international organizations hides from view that international organizations have come to be important political actors in their own right, independent from member state preferences. Given the pivotal role of international organizations as the main institutions of global governance, exercising considerable public authority, it stands to reason to think of a different perspective. The perspective PRIVIGO is in the process of developing, taking into account the connections with and to the private sector, does not view them as automatically guaranteeing the ‘salvation of mankind’ (if only…), but takes international organizations serious as actors in political-economic struggles, and as actively engaged, however unintentionally perhaps, in the authoritative allocation of values.
The overall objectives closely connect to the work actually being done. One of these objectives is to collect information on how many international organizations are structured, what they do, and how it affects third parties, in particular the private sector; as it is, the discipline knows far too little about the vast majority of international organizations.
A second objective is to document how contacts with the private sector are regulated: how does this take place? Under what conditions? Are there legal safeguards, or judicial remedies? How – if at all - does the involvement of the private sector in such activities as funding translate into the governance of international organizations, and what does it entail for accountability? Here the aim is to describe the applicable legal framework with some precision.
And a third objective resides in the process of re-thinking international organizations law, both investigating the weaknesses and blind spots of approaches to international organizations and developing new theoretical resources. If the law has long been premised on the idea that the only relevant partners of the international organization are its member states, then surely the contact to the outside world (including the private sector) must come to affect the underlying legal and theoretical frameworks.
In line with the above, three post-doctoral researchers are working on, respectively, private sector funding, international organizations as market actors, and the re-distributive effect of decision-making, while the project also involves an electronic resource for fellow scholars, practitioners and the public at large. The principal investigator, in turn, is engaged in the formation of a novel perspective on international organizations and international organizations law. Some publications have seen the light or are pending, but much of the activities so far has involved data gathering and monograph conceptualization. This includes participation in seminars and workshops.
The state of the art is likely represented by a combination of the dominant approach to international organizations law (usually referred to as ‘functionalism’) and the critique of this approach (mostly, if not exclusively, formulated by the PI in earlier writings). If so, then it is fair to say PRIVIGO is reaching beyond the state of the art – and does so with a considerable margin. The outlines of PRIVIGO’s ‘political economy of international organizations law’, while still in development, have been well-received, judging by responses to presentations. The discipline seems to recognize something of interest and value taking place, and different audiences have come with suggestions for fine-tuning, additional factors to consider, and anecdotes and texts to examine to explore. And this applies not only to the theoretical work, but also to the more legal-doctrinal work undertaken in PRIVIGO: the discipline at large realizes that more attention should be paid to the involvement of the private sector in funding; to international organizations operating on markets, and to the re-distributive effect of decisions taken by international organizations.