Informal International Law-Making

Project Summary

This project is empirical and multidisciplinary. International cooperation is taking place at a scope and in a variety of forms never witnessed before. Yet, are people and democratically elected politicians losing their grip on this cooperation? Is this cooperation increasingly escaping the needed constraints of both domestic and international law, and somehow falling between the two into some sort of “accountability gap”? Answers and progress on this pressing societal problem must be empirically grounded, based on an examination of what is actually happening, and subsequently tested with cutting edge theories from all of the relevant academic disciplines. This is what this project will do, with the aim of providing a concrete map of the action and specific proposals for reform where needed.

Phase 1 will infiltrate and describe informal international law-making focusing on activity in Geneva and Brussels. This “mapping” will unearth what is actually happening, and how.

Phase 2 will identify and explain similarities and differences in the design of such phenomena. This “testing” phase will apply existing concepts of accountability and effectiveness to these designs.

Phase 3 will offer reform suggestions. Junior researchers will play a crucial role in phase 1, and cooperation between lawyers and international relations scholars in the form of training and workshops will be indispensable in phase 2.

For more information, please see the Project Framing Paper.

The project is also supported by:

• The Graduate Institute’s Centre for Trade and Economic Integration
• The Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies
• The University of Twente.

Project Leaders

Prof. Joost H.B. Pauwelyn is a Professor of International Economic Law and WTO Law at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

Dr. Gabrielle Marceau is one of the top lawyers at the WTO, and an Associate Professor at Geneva University Law School.

Prof. Jan Wouters is a Professor of International Law and the Law of International Organizations and Director of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies and the Institute for International Law at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Prof. Ramses A. Wessel is Professor of the Law of the European Union and other International Organizations and Co-Director of the Centre for European Studies at the University of Twente, The Netherlands.

Researchers

Dr. Manfred Elsig - Graduate Institute, Geneva
Prof. Andrea Bianchi - Graduate Institute, Geneva
Prof. Cedric Dupont - Graduate Institute, Geneva
Dr. Theresa Carpenter - Graduate Institute, Geneva
Dr. Lorenzo Casini - La Sapienza University, Rome
Dr. Shawn Donnelly - University of Twente, Enschede

Duration       

November 2009 – November 2011

HiiL Grant Amount   

This project has been awarded a HiiL grant in the amount of €200,000.

Matching

The HiiL funding is matched by additional support from the Graduate Institute’s Centre for Trade and Economic Integration, Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies and the University of Twente in the total amount of €160,000.

Contact Information

Prof. Joost H.B. Pauwelyn
Project Leader
Joost.Pauwelyn@graduateinstitute.ch