The legalization of conventional international governmental organizations: An empirical survey

Abstract

International legalization refers to the idea that states voluntarily accept legal constraints in certain issue areas. Although the phenomenon of international legalization has become increasingly prominent in world affairs, its growth has been uneven. The purpose of this project is to perform a systematic examination of international legalization by providing an empirical survey of conventional international governmental organizations (IGOs). Due to the lack of a supranational sovereign government, most activity in the international system is not very legalized. IGOs are the most legalized international institutions. They are created by international agreements of states and they include substantive rules that states must follow as well as procedural rules that allow institutions of the organization to conduct its functions. These IGOs exhibit a wide variation in legalization. This observation raises a question as to what can account for this variation? The first step in approaching this task is to build upon the concept of legalization and develop a measure of legalization that is applicable to IGOs. An analysis of the constitutional mandates of these organizations reveals certain characteristics in their respective texts that can be used to create an index of legalization that will allow for a comparison of legal structures across organizations. The next step is to evaluate hypotheses deriving from functionalism, collective action, realism, and neoliberal institutionalism to explain the variation in these observations. These hypotheses are based upon potential explanations at the organizational and at the state level. Using evidence from descriptive data and appropriate methodologies, the findings of the project reveals that the number of members in an organization is an influential characteristic in regard to the level of IGO legalization. It also indicates that the wealth of a member state is also a positively related factor to whether a state will be a party to a highly legalized IGO agreement.