Global Administrative Law and Deliberative Democracy

Abstract

This chapter attempts to bring ‘global administrative law’ (GAL) and democracy into conversation. It addresses two separate observations: first, that democracy currently lacks the tools to respond to the globalization and diffusion of political authority; and secondly, that GAL is not presently democratic—it has no room for democratic concerns in its emerging norms. As such, the chapter aims to give an overview of GAL and some of its contributions to international legal theory; explore the way in which GAL’s focus on innumerable capillary-level sites of power may open promising terrain for the instantiation of democracy beyond the state; consider how work on GAL can be enhanced by engaging with, and drawing ideas from, work on deliberative democracy; and note the rising impact and future potential of democratic striving in the practice of institutional entrepreneurship and GAL lawyering.

Transparency in fisheries governance: Achievements to date and challenges ahead

“…As international organisations have acquired more decision-making powers and emerged as global public administrators [18], this has been accompanied by normative standards as well as procedures for decision-making. Transparency is one such normative standard, alongside participation, review, accountability, and reason-giving [19,20]. In the words of Donaldson and Kingsbury, '[t]he spread of formal transparency policies is part of a broader pattern by which global governance is increasingly being made subject to procedural norms that, at least in loose and functional terms, reflect basic principles of administrative law as it exists within States' [21, see also 18,22].…”

“…We have a positive feedback loop here because granting more information to the general public in turn helps to constitute such an (imagined) global civil society' [23]. Viewed through the lens of global administrative law, the 'institutionalisation of these principles seems likely to facilitate deliberation, and open up processes of decision-making to larger deliberative communities' [19].…”