UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies and Group Agency
Final Report Abstract
The project dealt with the agency of international institutions, or individual bodies within international institutions, that are authorized to monitor states concerning the implementation of their international obligations. Agency was conceptualized in such a way that the term includes both the transfer of competences by states and the independent development of autonomy over time. Empirically, the project focused on the United Nations (UN) human rights treaty bodies, that have been entrusted by states with monitoring the implementation of the UN human rights conventions. Other international institutions such as the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council and the European Parliament (EP) were also included in the study. The project addressed a relevant topic, as it is important in view of the numerous current global crises and problems to identify conditions and mechanisms under which and with the help of which international institutions can become or remain capable of acting. With regard to the delegation of monitoring powers by states to international institutions, we have shown that the decision to delegate such powers to political representatives or experts is influenced by the underlying cooperation problem. Accordingly, states tend to delegate monitoring competences to bodies composed of political representatives when they are confronted with an enforcement or a commitment problem. In addition, we have shown that international institutions also monitor the behaviour of those states that have not agreed to the underlying agreements if this is in the interest of powerful states. However, the fact that such monitoring behaviour is recognized as legitimate at all can only be understood against the background of the erosion of the state consent norm, according to which states are only bound by obligations to which they have explicitly consented. With regard to the development of autonomy after the formal transfer of monitoring competences to international institutions, we have shown that internal self-legitimation practices can play an important role in this process. Such practices can help associations of individuals to build a common identity. This, in turn, can strengthen the willingness of individual group members to work towards the group's goals and to give less weight to their own particular interests. Furthermore, we have shown that self-legitimization in this context is not only achieved through common narratives about fair procedures, effectiveness or the moral value of the task to be performed, but also through highlighting relations with other actors and institutions perceived as legitimate.
