Inter-public legality or post-public legitimacy? Global governance and the curious case of global administrative law as a new paradigm of law

Abstract

This article aims to explore the impact of global governance on legal thinking by studying the case of global administrative law. Tracing global governance at the core of the international rule of law movement to the restructuring of legal landscape, I suggest that global administrative law, supported by the underlying values of administrative law, reflects a deliberately chosen approach to the new nomos of the earth in the global era. Distanced from the will of nation-states, the legality and legitimacy of global administrative law are reconstructed around the idea of publicness, suggesting a new paradigm of law based on inter-public legality. I argue that under this new paradigm of law, political calculation displaces legal reasoning. Legality amounts to the dispensation of legal weight and is thus merged with politics. Given the non-public, interest-oriented character of dialogues in the politics of weighting, however, global administrative law suggests a post-public conception of legitimacy.