Distributive Justice Through Procedure - Global Public Goods and Global Administrative Law

Abstract

Over the past ten years, the literature on Global Administrative Law (GAL) has taken on the project of ‘taming governance’ on the global scale by elaborating standards and principles of administration. Some scholars have focused on describing individual institutions active in global administration (GAIs), whereas others have tried to derive rules of GAL from international and domestic law. However, a larger-scale study of the state of GAL across GAIs is still missing. In addition, explanatory concepts for the emergence of GAL remain fairly vague and are only loosely connected to insights from international relations (IR) theory. Why should states want institutions to adopt GAL-type rules into their daily operations? How do we explain those instances of GAL we have already observed against the assumption of rationally acting states? The answer to these questions lies in dismantling the workings of GAIs empirically and seeing which risks they pose that states might want to curb using GAL. If these institutions even come close to making binding decisions on important matters independently, it would be natural for states to try and introduce e.g. certain accountability mechanisms benefiting them. They can do so by putting pressure on the institutions in question. Specifically, GAL can be employed to solve control and legitimacy issues surrounding the distribution of Global Public Goods. This paper proposes a qualitative study of global administrative institutions with a focus on administrative action and the procedural steps attached thereto. Viewing GAL as the product of rational institutional design opens the door to a more realistic perspective on the future development of the field, including through empirical research.