From equal state consent to equal public participation in international organizations: institutionalizing multiple International representation

Abstract

The authors begin by observing that most obligations of international law are still regarded as `based¿ on State consent. There are good reasons for this, especially from a democratic legitimacy perspective. Still, the principle of State consent, even in its qualified version of `democratic State¿ consent, suffers from important shortcomings that call for correctives. The chapter starts by accounting for the democratic value of State consent in International Organizations (hereafter IOs) before addressing some of its democratic deficits. It then articulates several institutional proposals to correct or, at least, complement the role of equal State consent in the institution, the operation and the control of IOs. The authors develop a non-ideal normative argument for the latter¿s political re-institution. That re-institution has to start with the replacement of the principle of equal State consent by that of equal public participation in IOs: this does not only avoid reducing State consent in IOs to State veto or refusal rights, but it also extends the personal scope of those participatory rights to other non-State public institutions.