The Quest for International Rule of Law and the Rise of Global Regulatory Regimes Some Theoretical Preliminaries

Abstract

This paper addresses the rise of global regulatory regimes within a broader theoretical framework of the international rule of law. Section 1 focuses on the question of who should be ultimate beneficiaries of the international rule of law, and it challenges Waldron’s claim that these should be individuals, rather than states. This section shows that, depending on the nature of a particular regime, states could also benefit from the global adherence to the rule of law. Section 2 explores what is required for a global regulatory regime to conform to the international rule of law value. Since central to this value has to be the very same idea that exists on the domestic level, that of “bounded government” which is restrained from acting outside its powers, a global regulatory regime has to meet a set of procedural and substantive requirements stemming from domestic administrative law, but adapted to peculiarities of the international level. Finally, Section 3 tries to show that the capacity of these regimes to excel the rule of law principles immanent to administrative matters is intricately connected to their putative “legality.” It transpires, however, that jurisprudential effort of conceptualizing global administrative law largely depends on its prior task of settling much broader issues, such as the relation between the core and peripheral concept of international law and the theoretical sustainability of “graduated normativity” of international legal instruments.