Global Governance and Norms in (Times of) Crisis: Towards a Relational Normativity

Abstract

The world is ill-equipped and -prepared to deal with global crises, whether it concerns the protection of the environment, the victims of armed conflict or poverty-stricken peoples. The lack of global leadership or the absence of multilateral cooperation are not the cause of those crises but rather the symptoms of growing distrust amongst decision-makers unable to tackle transnational problems. Furthermore, the standstill and status quo of decision-making in global governance institutions undermine the application of global norms governing global crises. Increasingly, international law becomes the target of political contestation along the West v. Global South, liberal v. authoritarian divides. The lack of trust in those norms has not only eroded their normativity but also – as a self-fulfilling prophecy – crippled global governance institutions that could no longer govern by those norms in the first place. The resulting institutional and normative vacuum has not only become the prelude to the end of the international/Western liberal/cosmopolitan world order. At the same time, it has also levelled the path for old and new directions to take over. Hence, the turn towards nationalism and regionalisation respectively advancing the retreat of the state out of the international order and the fragmentation of the latter rendering global crisis management inevitably more challenging. In order to escape such stalemate and to strengthen global norms instead, one must understand the conditions that give rise to the contested interpretations on international law. With those aims in mind, this paper takes stock of the Theory on the Relational Normativity of International Law (TORNIL) which reconceptualizes the sources from which international law derives its binding force. Besides the norms themselves, i.e. treaties, international customs and general principles of law – the first source – and moral values which underpin those norms – the second source, TORNIL posits that a third – complementary – source of international law must be taken into account, namely the context in which those norms and values are coming into being and are applied. That context is shaped by different sets of relationships between diverse (inter)national actors concerned with and affected by the development and application of international law. The nature of those relationships is characterized on a scale of trust and distrust. The more trust is present in those relationships, the more likely that compliance with existing international law can be secured or its future development can be promoted. Relational governance can here be instrumental in safeguarding international norms whose development and application ultimately depends on the presence of trust between the different share- and stakeholders in global governance institutions. If one fails, however, to appreciate the context as a source from which international law derives its normativity, division will be inevitable and one risks jeopardizing global governance in the long run – in particular in times of crises when it is most needed.