Constitutional Theories of International Organisations: Beyond the West

Abstract

The paper proposes revisions to the constitutional theory of international organisations in order to address the ‘imbalances in the global governance system’ mentioned in the 2021 Russian-Chinese Declaration on Global Governance and for inspiring legal building blocks for the desired ‘fairer, more democratic and rational multipolar world order’ mentioned therein. The paper identifies successive waves of constitutional theories that have pursued different goals. The first generation constitutional vocabulary flourishing in the 1960s and 1970s worked to empower international organisations. But multilateral saturation and occasional organisational overreach triggered the quest for the containment and accountability of international organisations. This phenomenon, which culminated in the 1990s and early millennium, motivated a second wave constitutional theory which - and in line with the political climate of the time - sought to apply the values of liberal constitutionalism (rule of law, human rights, and democracy) to international organisations. Meanwhile, that second wave has turned out to be selective and one-sided. Shortcomings are a lopsided political-human-rightism, the neglect of social hardship and of stark material inequality of living conditions for individuals across the globe, the de facto or de jure exclusion of actors from the global south in the work of international organisations, and the weakness of institutionalised forums for contestation and dissent. The paper sketches out a third variant of constitutional theory for international organisations in order to upscale and politicise the proto-democratic practices in their bodies, to rectify to the north-south imbalance that is inter alia rooted in the colonial heritage, and to tackle the global social question upfront.