Democratic Representation within International Organizations

Abstract

Abstract International organizations (ios) have become key institutions in contemporary international law-making. Their increase in authority has, however, come together with a decrease in politicization. This has led, when the question of their control arose, to largely distracting discussions about ‘good governance’ and ‘accountability’. This article focuses on one of the central dimensions of what could amount instead to ‘good government’ by ios, including their democratic legitimacy, and explains how ios could be designed so as to ensure sufficient democratic representation. It argues that ios’ institutional specificities actually make them pivotal to the realization of multiple international representation. As public, universal and external international institutions, they could and should contribute to implementing a system of international representation that approaches multiple public and private institutions claiming to represent peoples as a part of an institutional continuum. This is true with respect to the organization of the correctives to the democratic shortcomings of each representative institution in the system, as much as to the mutual compensation of their respective deficits.