Reading Note: ISA Annual Conference, April 6th - 9th 2021
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Reading Note: ISA Annual Conference, April 6th - 9th 2021
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE & INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION - Regional
Solutions to Regional Problems?
Junior Scholar Symposia
Before reading this paper, allow me to contextualise it briefly.
This paper is part of my dissertation project on “Human Rights Legitimation in Regional Organisation”.
This final dissertation will consist of essentially two parts. A first analysis looks at the broader picture and
examines 28 regional organisations’ human rights legitimation from 1980 until today in a qualitative
comparative analysis. This rather ‘quantitative’ part (I work with a large-N QCA with around 900 cases)
aims at describing overarching patterns, general tendency and at best different typical paths that lead to
human rights legitimation. A second analysis zooms in on individual cases, via comparative case studies to
further disentangle causal mechanisms underlying the use of human rights legitimation for distinct paths.
While the QCA focuses on the macro-level the case study concerns the micro-level.
Though, minor revisions of the QCA are still foreseen, I currently work with the results that democratic
membership of ROs as well as presence of human rights institutions are the most decisive conditions for
the occurrence of human rights legitimation. With this in mind, I initiated my case studies on the League of
Arab States and the Caribbean Community – two cases that do not fit the results of this QCA.
The present paper is a first attempt to make sense of these case studies and the respective virtual field
research. I tried to theorize alternative ways to unravel the mechanism underlying the use of human rights
legitimation. Field research is not completed yet. Thus, all results are only preliminary. Therefore, I look
forward to feedback on both the current theoretical framework, ways to refine it, as well as additional
possible paths to inquire for the case studies.
I warmly appreciate all kinds of comments and look forward to the discussion.
Thanks a lot, Swantje SchirmerHuman Rights in the Arab League and CARICOM – Approaching Self-
Legitimation in the Global South
Swantje Schirmer
GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg
Early draft. Please do not circulate!
Abstract:
How does human rights legitimation unfold in regional organisations in the Global South? Dominant
theories of international organisation and regional integration posit a congruence model i.e. that regional
organizations are an integral part of liberal global governance institutions and by that would also draw from
a liberal lingo for legitimation. As human rights evolved to become part of a dominant moral discourse in
today’s world, all ROs would also portray themselves in the language of human rights. I challenge this
conventional perspective by proposing an analysis of regional organisation in the Global South that rests on
the distinct theoretical premise that legitimation via human rights unfolds differently in these regions. To
present this argument this paper follows four steps. In the first sections I elaborate on the theoretical status
quo of human rights legitimation in regional organisations, the congruence model and sketch out my
counterproposition for regional organisations in the Global South both theoretically and empirically. Then,
I construct three hypotheses drawing from post-colonial theory, research on legitimation and organisational
studies. After presenting the research design, I undertake an empirical assessment in form of a plausibility
probe in the third section. I present case studies on the League of Arab States and the Caribbean Community
and scrutinizing them regarding the three hypotheses. In these case studies, based on primary sources and
semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, I find that the League of Arab States makes frequent use of
this legitimation representing a typical case of a Global South RO. On the contrary, despite being democratic
in membership, the Caribbean Community does not refer to human rights for legitimation.
Content
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 1
I. Theory ......................................................................................................................................................................... 4
The Delusive Congruence Model of Legitimation in the Liberal, International Order ................................ 4
Hypothesizing Human Rights Legitimation in the Global South ...................................................................10
II. Research Design .....................................................................................................................................................14
III. Plausibility Probe – Comparing ROs in the Global South ............................................................................16
The League of Arab States ....................................................................................................................................16
The Caribbean Community ...................................................................................................................................22
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................................25
References.....................................................................................................................................................................28
Annex 1 – Sample of Regional Organisations of the LegRO-Dataset...........................................................34
Annex 2 – Conceptualization of HR legitimation following the LegRO Codebook ..................................35
Annex 3 – Overview of Interviews ......................................................................................................................37Introduction
In all regional organisations across the globe, human rights apparently do play a role. The trailblazer for
regional integration, the European Union is for instance lauded by the former UN Secretary General Ban
Ki Moon for playing “a central role in helping to build peace, save lives, promote human rights (…) across
the world”1. The Heads of State and Government of the Association of South-East Asian Nations claim
relevance of and activity on human rights by stating: “on the promotion and protection of human rights in
the region, we expressed satisfaction with the work of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on
Human Rights (AICHR)” (ASEAN 2013, p. 2). In the South African Development Community, authority
is even claimed over human rights as its tribunal states in a judgement from 2012 that it “has jurisdiction in
respect of any dispute concerning human rights, democracy and the rule of law” (SADC Court 2012, p. 25).
Indeed, human rights (HR) appear in communication about regional organisations (RO), they feature in the self-
communication by the RO and they are institutionalized in the ROs. This is indeed surprising as human rights
are frequently framed as part of a liberal scheme of global governance and as a key liberal concept in and of
itself. While liberalism allegedly won other ideologies, e.g. imperialism or socialism in the longue durée,
recent evaluation of the liberal international order (LIO) sketch a glimpse picture of its relevance and
chances of survival. Whether observing an authoritarian backlash, a rise of populism or a completely
unleashed global market undermining the core values of this liberal international order through its digital
innovations (Farrell and Newman 2021; Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Hofmann 2020; Neuman 2020), many
scholars agree on the fact that this allegedly liberal order is threatened. Zooming in again on regional
organisation does not brighten the picture given for example the inaction of ASEAN with regard to
Myanmar, a similarly mute Commonwealth of Independent States concerning the events in Belarus and
impotent neighbouring ROs or an Organisation of American States whose most vocal human rights
defender and critique of Venezuela, the incumbent Secretary General Luis Almagro now fears re-election
(Itasari 2020; Kolarzik and Terzyan 2020).2
This raises the question whether the same holds true for human rights as a norm that seems intrinsically
linked to this order. Are human rights still relevant or losing in their normative power? In fact, scholars
usually attribute these values high relevance in todays’ world, i.e. as representing a moral baseline or a key
tenant for moral-ethical evaluation of international actions, being a “dominant moral and political discourse
in the world today” (Sikkink 2017, p. 8; but see also Neuman and Voeneky 2018). More precisely, scholars
also contend that human rights came to be a baseline for legitimating authority not only nationally but also
internationally (Donnelly 1998, p. 22). Novel data on self-legitimation of 28 regional organisations across
1 Ki Moon, Ban 2012 “Statement by the Secretary-General on the awarding of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the European
Union”, 12 October 2012 available at https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2012-10-12/statement-awarding-2012-
nobel-peace-prize-european-union, accessed 08.03.2021.
2 Oppenheimer, Andres 2020 „OAS shouldn’t give Venezuela dictator Maduro the compliant leader that he wants“, Miami Herald,
14 February 2020, available at https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-
oppenheimer/article240304951.html, accessed 08.03.2021.
1the world corroborates this claim. Therein, human rights figure not only prominently as a legitimation theme
amongst eleven other norms, but its use is spread across all world regions and has significantly increase over
time.3 Focusing on this use of human rights – as a reference for legitimation – presents a way to assess their
relevance.
Following a conventional assumption termed the congruence model of how such legitimation unfolds, is
closely connected to the idea of human rights being part of the liberal international order and a resulting
recent threat for them (Lenz and Viola 2017; Suchman 1995; Weber 1978). In these lines, western, liberal
democracy were victorious over a global fascist threat in the middle of the 20th century and again with regard
to the cold war, thus were able to fashion and craft the international order akin to their values, i.e. in a liberal
manner. National values were transposed to the international level – democracy, the rule of law, open market
economy and human rights came to dominate international cooperation (Lake et al. 2021; Fukuyama 2006).
Bearing this in mind, a congruence model of legitimation implies that all these values are also at the disposal
of those holding international authority, i.e. also regional authority in the form of regional organisation,
rendering references to such a liberal lingo and with that also human rights in order to claim their legitimacy
only logical (Tallberg and Zürn 2019; Heupel and Zürn 2017) .
A closer look at the above-mentioned data on references to human rights in regional organisations for the
purposes of legitimation, however, shows that not all ROs equally make use of this norm. Indeed, as I will
further demonstrate below the data reveals, that while overall significance grew, human rights are not used
in all ROs equally for legitimation. Some use it a lot, some only occasionally, and some do not use it at all.
Interestingly, the picture is particularly variegated when zooming in on ROs in the Global South4. The
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, an RO of highly democratic small island states almost never
makes use of this reference. On the contrary, the Association of South-East Asian Nations, with in part
notorious autocratic member states, frequently exploits human rights for legitimation.5 What explains this
puzzling diversity of the role of human rights in legitimating the authority of ROs in the Global South?
Departing from the conventional wisdom of a liberal international order (LIO) that provides a normative
spectrum that international authority can draw on for legitimation, I question such a liberal understanding
of human rights and consider critiques of this wisdom stemming mostly from post-colonial research on
human rights and ROs. This helps elucidate this puzzling observation. In fact, I argue that human rights
3 See LegRO-Dataset on legitimation communication in 28 regional organization for the period of 1980-2019. For more details on
the dataset, the conceptualization and measurement/coding see Annex 2.
4 As much as notion like “Third World”, “Developing World” or else, scholars and activist vividly discuss the most recent term
“Global South” and precise definition are widely contested. While aware of the critiques, engaging with this discussion is beyond
the scope of this paper. For more see for example Global South Studies Centre 2015 “Concepts of the Global South”, Issue 1,
Cologne: University of Cologne, available at https://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/6399/1/voices012015_
concepts_of_the_global_south.pdf, accessed 09.03.2021. For the purpose of this study, I conceive of Global South as all non-
‘western’, less industrialized countries excluding the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand and
Australia.
5 According to the LegRO-Dataset, the OESC only use human rights legitimation, once in 2009 and once in 2015. For ASEAN
references in the early 1980 were identified, followed by a long pause until the late 2000 from which point in time on human rights
legitimation became a recurring theme used.
2legitimation, i.e. the act of justifying one’s authority by referencing human rights, does not follow the logic
of this conventional wisdom in the Global South but unfolds differently in non-western ROs.
With that my argument makes the following three contributions: Firstly, and empirically it shifts the focus
of classical research of international organisation on those in the Global South where still an “untapped
potential” lays (Hurrelmann and Schneider 2015, p. 259). While the big four, i.e. the United Nations
Organisations, its different bodies and agencies, the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the
European Union are receiving tremendous scholarly attention, regional organisations are less scrutinized
(see for example Tallberg and Zürn 2019; Dingwerth et al. 2019a). Yet, even in this small realm of
scholarship, more prominent ROs such as the African Union, the Organisation of American States and the
Association of South-East Asian Nations are disproportionately often examined. Therefore, I propose case
studies on the League of Arab States and Caribbean Community. Thereby, not only two of the oldest
regional integration projects but also two very sophisticated and resilient regional organisations are put to
the forefront and empirical knowledge on ROs is diversified. With these case studies and a deliberate focus
on a wide array of literature stemming from research on these regions, e.g. postcolonial theory, this research
provides an empirical contribution with the potential to travel to other regional contexts.
Secondly, and conceptually this research helps to refine our understanding of not only self-legitimation of
international organisation itself but also provides in-depth insights on how the use of a specific normative
source affects such legitimation. While research on legitimation has recently focused a lot on different actors
relevant for legitimation (Schmidtke 2018), different audiences (Gronau and Schmidtke 2016; Dellmuth and
Tallberg 2020), or institutional features (Ecker-Ehrhardt 2018; Lenz et al. 2019), the content of the
legitimation itself has received a lot less attention. This is peculiar since what is talked about might have a
great implication for how successful this legitimation is. Focusing on human rights, a highly prominent and
well-established norm in the global sphere while still contested, is particularly useful for improving our
understanding of this process.
Finally, and theoretically, this paper contributes to scholarship on international organisation by bridging
between two distinct literatures that are still not connected well enough. Research on human rights in
international organisation such as the UN and its different agencies is well established when using a
mainstream IR theoretical approach. The growing body of literature on postcolonial perspectives of human
rights, however, is only hardly applied in the UN framework, e.g. for few specific institutions or rights.
Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, neither does a broad engagement with postcolonial theory take
place in studying legitimation in other international organisation, nor is this brought to the front in studying
these processes in regional organisation. For the latter, this is particularly infelicitous as colonial histories do
play such an important role in most Global South ROs. Some ROs can be understood as the descendants
of a former colonial regional merger such as the South African Customs Union (SACU) (Kirk and Stern
2005), while others came into existence on the eve of the struggle of decolonization of an entire continent,
i.e. the Organisation of African Unity (Campbell 2018). As human rights came to play a significant role in
these organisations too, it is sensible to bridge between a literature with a distinct postcolonial outlook on
3human rights and the analyses of these postcolonial institutions. Thus, this paper contributes by introducing
a new theoretical perspective to the analysis of regional organisation.
To present this argument this paper follows four distinct steps. In the first sections I will further elaborate
on the theoretical status quo on human rights legitimation in regional organisations, the congruence model
and sketch out my counterproposition for regional organisations in the Global South both theoretically and
empirically. Then, I construct three hypotheses drawing from post-colonial theory, research on legitimation
and organisational studies. After presenting the research design, I undertake an empirical assessment in form
of a plausibility probe in the third section. I present case studies on the League of Arab States and the
Caribbean Community and scrutinizing them regarding the three hypotheses. The last step is to conclude.
I. Theory
The Delusive Congruence Model of Legitimation in the Liberal, International Order
The goal of this paper is to examine human rights legitimation in regional organisations in the Global South
and propose alternative explanations for the use of human rights that go beyond a congruence model of
legitimation. I define a regional organisation as a formal international organisation composed of three or
more geographically proximate states (Börzel and Risse 2016, p. 7; Panke and Stapel 2018, p. 639).6 In these
ROs I examine discursive self-legitimation as a generalizable norm-based justification of an IO’s right to
rule. While this act of self-legitimation is a common phenomenon in international organisations (Tallberg
and Zürn 2019; Zaum 2013; Hurd 1999), this analysis focuses only on one kind of self-legitimation, namely
that which draws on human rights as a normative baseline. Few studies on the use of different norms and
values of legitimation exists, most frequently concerning typical liberal norms such as democracy,
legalization or the rule of law (Dingwerth et al. 2019b; Nuñez-Mietz 2018; Zürn 2018).
How specific norms come to play a role in legitimation is frequently explained by a so-called congruence
model. The core assumption stems from Max Weber stating that “the kind of legitimacy [that] is claimed”
will define “the mode of exercising authority” (Weber 1978, p. 213). Vice versa, IR research suggests that
the way states behave in the global sphere is determined by “the nature of domestic political regimes”
(Dingwerth et al. 2019b, 6; Tallberg et al. 2016, p. 60). According to this model’s main premise “legitimacy
is derived from congruence between an organisation’s features and the social values and norms held by
actors in the organisation’s constituency” (Lenz and Viola 2017, p. 3). Considering the alleged predominance
of a LIO, in which human rights are also enshrined, this transposition has taken place to the international
order. A liberal international order is reflective of the influence of western, liberal nation-states and mirrored
in global governance and its institutions, i.e. also international and regional organisation. In these lines,
scholars consequently also transpose the presence of liberal values to the regional levels. Therein, as a
corollary relevance of human rights is high and legitimacy can be claimed based on this notion (Moravcsik
6 To speak to a broader literature, while focusing on regional organization, I use the notions of international and regional
organizations at times synonymously. Aware of their incongruence in some respects, I nuance my argument and wording when
necessary.
41995, p. 179; Tallberg et al. 2016). Well thought-out, the LIO and its values could thus be the baseline and
source for legitimation for all institutions that are part of this order. All ROs could easily legitimate via
human rights.
I argue that this perceives the relation between legitimation, human rights and the LIO in a short-sighted
manner. Thus, instead of presenting a myopic definition of human rights, I suggest that a nuanced
confrontation with this notion to understand its relation to the LIO is necessary. Maria Dembour, for
instances, sketches out four different schools of human rights scholarship, which serve as a starting point
for distinguishing approaches to human rights and the congruence model implied regarding legitimation.
Dembour observes that human rights are not “unambiguous and uncontroversial” and that “there is in
practice a lack of agreement on what human rights are” (Dembour 2010, p. 2). She describes four schools
that all differ regarding their position to human rights law, the foundation and the realization of human
rights and their universality. One school indisputably does corroborate the assumption that universal rights
are an integral part of the LIO and thus also a source for legitimation for liberal, ‘western’ international
organisations. The three other schools, however, also reveal gateways for alternative hypothesizes on the
role of human rights legitimation with the prospect of nuancing this conventional wisdom for regional
organisations of the Global South.
The first school, termed the natural school defends the idea that human rights are those, that “one possesses
simply by being a human being” (ibid.). Thus, human rights are absolute, and entitlements of each individual
derived from the nature of mankind, “God, the Universe, reason, or another transcendental source.” (ibid.,
p. 3). The deliberative school is closely linked and slowly replaces the natural school as today’s prevalent
doctrine. Here scholars conceive “of human rights as political values that liberal societies choose to adopt”
(ibid.). These agreed upon values become universally achieved “if everybody around the globe becomes
convinced that human rights are the best possible legal and political standards that can rule society and
therefore, should be adopted” (ibid.). For both schools the link to the LIO is apparent and compatibility is
equally high, thus allows theorizing a congruence model. When defining the “liberal” in the liberal
international order, Lake and colleagues note for example that “at its (philosophical and normative) core,
‘liberal’ connotes a belief in the universal equality of individuals” (Lake et al. 2021, p. 9). This focus on
individual freedoms, may this be based in reason or contractual thinking at the time,7 is akin to the same
roots as the idea of entitlements in human rights (Pollis and Schwab 2006, p. 62). In the history of these
ideas, thinking of human rights as entitlements or individual freedoms as the realization of individual
autonomy, both draw from the same origins, i.e. ideas that “see[s] ‘human being’ as a fundamental moral
category” (Donnelly 2013, p. 71). The second school, on the contrary connects to the LIO as they were an
essential part of its establishment in the aftermath of WWI and II. Lake and colleagues advance that the
establishment of an order was both a remarkable success created after the horrors of the world wars and in
a perverse way the beneficiary of former approximations of “a brutal state of nature” (Lake et al. 2021, 4,
7 Here we can think of the different grand philosophers of the enlightenment, e.g. Immanuel Kant, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes
etc.
535). The establishment of this order coincided with the introduction and codification of human rights law
which is for deliberative scholars “the prime ways to express the human rights values that have been agreed
upon” (Dembour 2010, p. 3). Ascribing a coincidental nature to this evolution though, would not do the
vast field of historians on human rights justice who claim that this trend was precisely also an immediate
results of the World War II (for a discussion see for example Wheatley 2018; or Smith 2013). This shows
that an innate link between the LIO and human rights is discernible. An approach to human rights akin to
the natural or deliberative school thus corroborates the congruence model of legitimation. For regional
organisation being part of this order, to draw from human rights for legitimation could thus be a sensible
choice.
Yet, Dembour introduces two additional schools, that hint to a complex relationship between human rights,
the LIO and regional organisation. The protest schools understands human rights “as claims and aspirations
that allow the status quo to be contested in favour of the oppressed” (Dembour 2010, p. 3). Understanding
human rights as the result of struggle, this school is thereby closer to the role human rights might play in
the Global South. They are sceptical towards institutionalisation of human rights as a routinization might
undermine their aspirational power and instead lends power to the elites. This is reflective of the power
relations that form the core struggle of many Global South countries. Moreover, as hinted to in the
introduction such struggles are also at the origin of many ROs, i.e. a colonial history. Postcolonial scholars
indeed confront international human rights institutions with the criticism of reproducing power dynamics
that were only illusorily overcome through decolonization (Mutua 2001). Similarly, its aspirational character
doubting universality leaves room for evolution, “as the world evolves, so do the forms of suffering,
potentially requiring new formulations of human rights” (Dembour 2010, p. 9). This in line with a critique
of universal human rights as being unfitted for certain regional and cultural contexts since they cannot be
universally adopted but need to be adapted (Jetschke 2006). Interestingly, ROs frequently advance this need
for a region-specific approach substantiating the distinct role of an RO (Barnett 1998; Foong Khong and
Nesadurai 2007). Likewise, this aspirational character of human rights as conceived of by protest schools’,
might support a region-specific approach to human rights. Therefore, the protest school’s approach hints
to a unique dynamic that may unfold regarding legitimation that does not align with the congruence model.
Finally, discourse scholars, views human rights as existing “only because people talk about them” (Dembour
2010, p. 4). While they do acknowledge that using human rights “has become a powerful language with
which to express political claims”, thus conceding the possibility to legitimate based on human rights, these
scholars also deprecate the still wide-spread lack of its promised deliverable “namely equality between
human beings” (ibid.). Instead, they contend themselves with a close empirical analysis of the “contradictory
features of human rights discourse” (ibid., p. 8). This perspective on human rights reflects many empirical
analyses of regional human rights regimes in the Global South, that hint to a dubious stance on human
rights akin to this substantial reduction of their relevance to ‘pure discourse’. In fact, when examining the
role of human rights in ROs, scholars at times concur to observe only lip service, window dressing, or a
specific member state’s national interest (Debre 2020; Davies 2013; Hulse and van der Vleuten 2015). In
6part, activity and discourse on human rights in the Global South was even denounced as cultural relativism
(Ryu and Ortuoste 2014). Criticizing human rights as imperialism, discourse scholars indeed approach what
has been assessed as cultural relativism in the use of human rights, “which imbues culture with overriding
prescriptive force” (Donnelly 2013, p. 108; Jetschke 2006). Brushing human rights in regional organisation
of the Global South aside under this angle indeed sometimes comes easy and renders debatable whether to
term this purposive legitimation is adequate. However, considering persistency of this discourse, its
dishonesty without triggering regular denouncement and the persuasive and costly institutional backing for
some ROs, hint to a more complex process. Thus, I opt for an inclusive approach in understanding human
rights following this protest school in the analysis of legitimation.
Having laid out how a congruence model is too narrow for understanding human rights legitimation, an
empirical outlook at this phenomenon further illustrates my argument. I consider descriptive data on human
rights legitimation in regional organisation stemming from a novel dataset on 28 ROs of all world regions
from 1980 until today. Figure 1 and 2 display legitimation patterns for the different ROs regarding a general
intensity of legitimation as well as the use of the reference of human rights to do so.
7Figure 1 Legitimation patterns in ROs
This data results from large-scale coding of the RO’s public communication, i.e. annual reports of the
secretary general and summit communiqué of heads of state and government. To grasps legitimation, the
above introduced definition for self-legitimation was used and transformed into the following a legitimation
grammar:
The [object of legitimation (A)] is legitimate [normative evaluation (B)] because [normative standard (C)].
The sample of text was thus coded for statements that represent discursive self-legitimation as a
generalizable norm-based justification of an IO’s right to rule, scrutinizing the text on the basis of a
paragraph for phrases that could be transformed in the legitimation grammar above.8 Besides human rights,
8Data is drawn from the LegRO-Dataset on legitimation communication in 28 regional organization for the period of 1980-2019.
For further details on this coding process see Annex 2 as well as Lenz, Schmidtke, Krösche, Schirmer 2020 “Legitimation
8an additional eleven normative themes such as democracy, economic progress or sovereignty can serve as a
baseline for the normative standard. The blue lines in the graphs display the overall legitimation intensity
per year, while the grey bars show the frequency of human rights legitimation per year.
Figure 2 Legitimation patterns in ROs
As Figure 1 and 2 show human rights legitimation does indeed play a role in most of all regional
organisations. The definition and conceptualization of legitimation underlying the dataset does not settle on
neither a purely intrinsic nor a strategic use of legitimation. Both grammatical structure and strength of the
statements, however, transcends simple policy justifications or mere description, which corroborates my
claim that human rights legitimation in RO merits further attention. Additionally, the figures also show that
conventional wisdom assigning a congruence between the predominance of the LIO and related legitimation
does not allow to account for all legitimation. While prototypical LIO-related or “western” ROs such as the
Communication of Regional Organizations: Conceptualization and Empirical Findings, Conference Paper ECPR 14th General
Conference, 08/2020, virtual panel; on the dataset, the conceptualization and measurement/coding.
9EU, the OSCE and the CoE confirm this assumption, ROs such as the Nordic Council and EFTA already
present a clear contradiction for this region. Looking at ROs in the Global South paint an even less
consistent picture. While ROs such as the OAS where the hegemonic role of the USA might inflict adhesion
to the LIO, present a congruent use of human rights legitimation, strongly autocratic ROs such as ASEAN
and the Arab League also display frequent use of this legitimation. Cases like APEC, in turn, with a strong
preference for free trade or CARICOM and the OECS with strong democratic membership, thus ROs who
represent in parts core norms of the LIO, rarely refer to HR or do not make use of this norm at all. Finally,
we also spot cases like IGAD, the GCC or the SCO, i.e. ROs with highly autocratic membership that do
not make use of human rights legitimation, which then again corroborates the congruence model of
legitimation. Applying this model of legitimation thus cannot capture the phenomenon in particular
regarding the strong heterogeneity in the Global South.
Thus, the theoretical considerations regarding human rights as well as this empirical evidence corroborate
my argument that the congruence model of legitimation based on the LIO does not account for legitimation
dynamics in the Global South. In the following, I propose three hypotheses expanding the observations of
different human rights schools to examine in detail how human rights legitimation unfolds in regional
organisations in the Global South.
Hypothesizing Human Rights Legitimation in the Global South
While the natural school’s approach to human rights provides for the most clear-cut link between the LIO
and human rights legitimation in a congruence model, all three other schools serve as points of departure
for hypothesizing a nuanced understanding of how human rights legitimation unfolds in Global South RO’s.
To begin with, the deliberative school builds on the assumption of an agreed upon consensus on the validity
and usefulness of human rights. I argue that a closer look at the actors who are potential parties to this
consensus allows to unravel human rights legitimation. Following conventional wisdom, member states are
still the key drivers and constituency of regional integration and would thus matter exclusively in this
consensus and as addressees of legitimation (Panke 2020; Börzel 2016). While not contradicting this claim
of states as primary audiences and as most important addressees of an ROs actions (policies, rules,
regulation), scholars on legitimation contend though that “research on audiences of GGI [global governance
institutions] (de)legitimation remains underdeveloped”. Indeed, they suggest additional audiences that an
RO might target, e.g. bureaucrats, international actors, a wider public of individuals, or the media (Bexell
and Jonsson 2018, p. 119; Suchman 1995, p. 574). A recent study on audiences confirms that
“institutionalised political authority relationship that privileged constituencies as legitimation audiences is
no longer an obvious starting point for the study of self-legitimation” (Bexell et al. 2020, p. 22). Thus, going
beyond member states in the realm human rights to understand this consensus is necessary.
Bexell and colleagues elaborate on three aspects that help determine additional audiences for self-
legitimation. First, they highlight that actors within an IO may have to follow potentially contradicting
approaches regarding the audiences and concerning the norms they claim. For some of ROs in question,
10due to their authoritarian character in membership, this conflict is apparent – authoritarian member states
would allegedly not be the most sensible addressees of human rights legitimation, hinting to the existence
of a secondary audiences that is addressed with this claim (Bexell et al. 2020, p. 5). Secondly, their framework
illustrates that due to limited resources as well as these potential conflicts, not all self-appointed audiences,
i.e. those criticizing the RO and thus demanding for a legitimation addressing them, will be targeted (ibid.,
p. 9). Instead, they draw our attention to the agency of the RO as the legitimizer in deliberately choosing
between different additional audiences for legitimation, thus “going beyond a unitary view of the agent of
legitimation” (ibid., p.16). Finally, Bexell and colleagues introduce intermediary audiences, which are
addressed “with the expectation that these intermediaries would in turn convince other audiences of the
institution’s legitimacy” (ibid., p. 21). I would argue that all three aspects are key to understanding human
rights legitimation in the Global South. As congruence is not sufficient to explain this relationship,
contradictions among audiences are likely. Furthermore, blatant resource scarcity – a recurrent phenomenon
of ROs in the Global South, does not allow all ROs to always address all additional audiences (Engel and
Mattheis 2020). Thus, key agents within the RO need to be identified who determined which additional
audiences to address. An intermediary audience that allows to alleviate the reach of this legitimation, thus
improving the cost/benefit-relationship of this endeavour is probable. Therefore, I suggest the following
first hypothesis for examining how human rights legitimation unfolds in Global South ROs:
Hypothesis 1: In Global South ROs human rights legitimation unfolds in addressing additional (contradictory)
audiences determined by key agents in the RO that often serve as intermediary audiences.
A second hypothesis is constructed following the commonalities between the protest school and
postcolonial studies in their approach to human rights.9 While less sceptical towards universality as the
discourse school, protest scholars contend that though aiming for universality, real universality only exists
in suffering. Universal realization of human rights on the contrary is impossible due to the ever-changing
nature of the world , human suffering and injustice. Furthermore, they assert that institutions on human
rights may be hijacked, that “law too often betrays the HR idea” or that “implementing laws risk being an
abject deformation of their ideal” (Dembour 2010, p. 11). Relatedly, for postcolonial scholars this
deformation finds expression in reality in international human rights institutions and policies, in which the
politics of human rights “only universalized the powers of the dominant in ways that constantly elsewhere
reproduce human rightlessness and suffering” (Baxi 2008, xiv). For the most critical postcolonial scholars
this observation leads to a complete rejection of the concept as inherently western lacking any consensus
that allows for their cultural legitimacy. Consequently, these scholars question how this concept can “be
introduced in other cultures without being a vehicle of Western cultural and economic imperialism”
9Obviously, commonalities are not equally high for all postcolonial scholars. Aware of the diversity of this scholarly debate, I only
make this reduction for the purpose of hypothetical clarity but agree with Dembour that postcolonial scholars can be both subsumed
under the school of protest as well as the discourse school. Indeed, Dembour herself does refer to postcolonial scholars in both
groups in the example she gives and emphasizes that her proposition should be understood as “ideal-types rather than fixed
categories (…). The model does not assume of claim that social reality (…) always exactly conforms to its propositions.” (Dembour
2010, p. 4).
11(Ingiyimbere 2017, p. 3; but see also Pollis and Schwab 2006, p. 62). Accordingly, not only international
human rights institutions but similarly any international human rights movement is reviving colonialism-like
interactions, ‘othering’ and an “arrogant and biaised rhetoric” that “prevents the movement from gaining
cross-cultural legitimacy” (Mutua 2001, p. 206).
Few scholars, however, focus more on the emancipatory character of human rights as is also done by the
protest school. Indeed, they find that it is precisely in this inquiry, whether human rights are western, where
their potential lays, as this discussion “can contribute to an emancipatory human rights regime that is aware
of its own imbalances, inequalities, and genesis” (Mende 2021, p. 47). More importantly, suggesting to bridge
between the opposing camps via a critical defence of human rights, they argue that this “gives room for
different cultural and religious interpretations” (Bielefeldt 2000, p. 92). How instructive such critical
confrontation is, shows Samuel Moyn’s “The last utopia: human rights in history”, offering a critical reading
of their historical evolution. He demonstrates for example, that while not necessarily originating from this
era, human rights mattered early on in the Global South’s post-colonial struggle and the strive for national
sovereignty via the notion of the right to self-determination (Moyn 2012, p. 117). Interestingly, as already
alluded to, this struggle was equally relevant when creating regional organisation. They often not only
contributed to this struggle but claimed an integral role in this for the institution itself – feeding also into its
legitimation. Additionally, they did so with a significant cultural tone to it. The notions of “Pan-Arabism”,
“Pan-Africanism, “Pan-Caribbeanism”, “Bolivarianismo” or “the ASEAN way” fuelling the legitimation of
different ROs are reflective of these culturally imbued struggles (Campbell 2018; Kocken and van
Roozendaal 2012; Domínguez 2007; Foong Khong and Nesadurai 2007; Barnett 1998). Embedding this
postcolonial struggle for self-determination in a regional cultural context, allegedly strengthened this claim
and the norms referred to.
In IR scholarship, analyses of how norms are made workable in different cultural context most frequently
revert to Amitav Acharya’s concept of localization which “describes a process in which external ideas are
simultaneously adapted to meet local practices” (Acharya 2004, p. 251). For the analysis of human rights,
approaches in anthropology, philosophy or sociology provide similar labels, e.g. translation or domestication
for this process (Merry 2006; Berger 2017; Ingiyimbere 2017). What they all have in common, is that they
bestow local, national, or regional actors with significant degrees of agency in choosing, adapting, translating
international human rights norms to render them compatible with local, national and regional features. I
argue that a similar process matters in human rights legitimation in the Global South. Due to the continued
relevance of the post-colonial genesis of ROs in the Global South, regional cultural features are also of
greater importance in the use of human rights. With an approach to human rights akin to the protest school,
I suggest the following second hypothesis for how human rights legitimation unfolds in the Global South:
Hypothesis 2: In Global South ROs human rights legitimation unfolds under the clout of a post-colonial RO genesis
imbued with cultural features in understanding HR where key agents in the region engage in translation.
12Finally, a hypothesis is deduced from the discourse school on human rights, clarifying their view that human
rights is only something “talked about” (Dembour 2010, p. 2). To illustrate this best, one needs to go back
to some of the core assumption of conventional wisdom on IOs. For this approach comes with a distinct
understanding of the relation of institutional design, discourse, and action. When western, liberal states
create an international organisation that shall further their values, they are crafted following this rationality
and designed in a rational manner to best pursue these cooperation goals. This is what is often termed a
rational design of international organisation (Koremenos et al. 2001; Keohane 1988). This approach cannot
explain, however, why an authoritarian RO refers to HR as a key goal to legitimate itself and creates related
institutions, while no real action or impact is visible, the institutions seem void and ineffective, and the
credibility of this goal is widely challenged. While scholars easily dismiss this as simple window-dressing or
lip-service (Debre 2020; Hulse and van der Vleuten 2015; Davies 2013), persistency of this discourse, its
obvious dishonesty and the persuasive and costly institutional backing, hint to a more complex process.
To shed light on this, I draw on Nils Brunsson’s idea of organisational hypocrisy. Expanding on world polity
approaches positing that an organisation’s normative environment leads to inefficient institutional design
(Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Meyer et al., 1985; Meyer, 2010), he introduces ideal types of organisations that
account for normative inconstancies and potentially resultant conflicts that an organisation faces. As
“institutional norms (…) can also be inconsistent in themselves” (Brunsson, 2006, p. 8), the ideal type of a
‘political organisation’ allows for the “reflection of inconsistencies” in discourse, action and institutional
design (ibid. p. 14). While the ideal-type of an ‘action-organisation’ “does what it says” (ibid., p. 17), the
‘political organisation’ aims to satisfy “a variety of ideas and demands” in its environment (ibid., p. 19). This
is what Brunsson terms “organisational hypocrisy”, namely the fact “that talk, decisions and products tend
to be inconsistent” (ibid., p. 27). In the ROs environment in question here I assume thus, that it faces
inconsistency in demands when it comes to HR. To nuance on the resulting communication, I draw from
the notion of ‘bullshitting’: In building on the philosopher Harry Frankfurt and its account on ‘bullshit’,
Hayley Stevenson shows how in the area of climate change a way to deal with inconsistency between talk
and action can be considered bullshit. This understanding is particularly useful for this case due to three key
characteristics of bullshit ascribed by Frankfurt. Firstly, the goal of bullshitting is to further one’s interest
and leaving “a favourable impression” instead of conveying factually correct information which
approximates the goals of legitimation (Stevenson 2021, p. 3). Secondly, bullshit is accompanied with a
“carelessness with the truth” and loss of respect for the truth. This distinguishes it from lying where stating
the opposite of the truth is at least still acknowledged. Thus, bullshitting allows for speaking the truth at
least in part (a bullshit statement is not entirely wrong) and for the speaker to unknowingly speak the untruth
(Frankfurt 2005). Finally, differentiating bullshitting from lying, makes the latter more acceptable in society.
While lying constitutes a violation of the truth, bullshitting is less limited and thus also fulfils the simple
function to cover up tangible inconsistency. I argue that these three characteristics are also discernible for
HR legitimation and thus hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 3: In Global South ROs human rights legitimation unfolds in communication akin to bullshitting.
13II. Research Design
I examine the research question of how human rights legitimation unfolds in regional organisations of the
Global South by assessing the constructed hypothesis in two of these organisations, namely the League of
Arab States and the Caribbean Community. I draw both on quantitative as well as qualitative data. The first
stems from the novel dataset on legitimation communication in regional organisations worldwide
throughout the period of 1980 until today. The qualitative data mainly draws from semi-structured
interviews with diverse stakeholders in the realm of the RO, e.g. current and former employees, national
and international cooperation partners.10 Due to the global pandemic these interviews were not conducted
in situ but were carried out from home office in Germany via videotelephony or teleconferencing tools. All
interviews were conducted by the author within a period from October 2020 until March 2021. This data is
replenished by primary data of the ROs, e.g. press releases, reports or communications on the website.
The purpose of these case studies is to provide a plausibility probe of the overarching argument of this
paper. Suggesting a “causal link between normative necessity to legitimate political authority and the
establishment of provisions to protect human rights” as the authors of this quote do too, is not a novelty in
IR scholarship as the congruence model described above shows. Scholars, however, do often retreat from
disentangling the underlying mechanism and revert to generic formulations of how this “may depend largely
on differences in the availability of resources and political opportunities, and hence on normatively highly
contingent factors” (Heupel and Zürn 2017, p. 9). While I do indeed argue that precisely this mechanism in
the Global South significantly differs from ‘western’ ROs, thus pleading for a different causal story,
providing sufficient empirical evidence to fully prove or disprove this argument would go beyond the scope
of this contribution. Taking the notion of mechanisms of causal processes seriously – in theory – a fully-
fledged application of process-tracing would be necessary but proves unfeasible for this setting(Beach 2016,
p. 465).11 Thus, instead of testing the hypothesis in order to corroborate or falsify them, I aim for a
plausibility probe of the above theorized (Lijphart 1975, p. 159). Hence, I propose to provide for “a
narrative story leading to an outcome” and thus the “simplest understanding for mechanisms” (Beach 2016,
p. 464), while future analyses shall aim for a encompassing picture of the causal story and thus enable cross-
case inferences. The hypothesis will serve as guiding cornerstones for empirical engagement with the cases.
Table 1 below identifies possible questions to answer and cues to identify akin evidence necessary for
process tracing. These will be addressed step by step in the case study.
10For an overview on the interviews conducted see Annex 3
11 A proper application of process-tracing would need the definition of four types of evidence for all three hypotheses and
subsequent testing and temporal sequencing for both cases. Doing all this while upholding a minimum standard of qualitative
research is not feasible within the scope of a conference paper.
14Hypotheses 1 2 3
… under the clout of a post-
In Global … in addressing additional
colonial RO genesis imbued
South ROs (contradictory) audiences … in communication akin
with cultural features in
human rights determined by key agents in the to bullshitting.
understanding HR where key
legitimation RO that often serve as
agents in the region engage in
unfolds … intermediary audiences.
translation.
Does normative
Is there inconsistency
inconsistency exist in the
between talk,
region? Is there a post-colonial
decisions, and
Does resource scarcity exist struggle and a linked
products?
in the RO? regional identity?
Guiding Is there possibly
Is there a key agent that Are there instances of a
Questions some truth to the
identified and decided to culturally imbued
and Cues legitimation
address this audience? understanding of HR?
statements?
Does this additional Are there actors that
Do speakers
audience have the potential engage in this translation?
unknowingly speak
to act as an intermediary the untruth?
audience?
Table 1 Hypotheses
In a similar vein, case selection slightly turns away from methodological rigour but aims to provide the best
plausibility probe possible for the time being. Thus, a typical case and a deviant, not covered case were
chosen for the analysis. The typical case serves as a main illustration for the argument ideally showcasing
cues for all the above presented hypothesis. The deviant, not covered case, on the contrary, possibly not
only allows to further converge on which of the hypothesized mechanism is decisive but also hints to
potentially missing factors that one should also consider in order to understand how human rights
legitimation unfolds in the Global South (Tarrow 2010, p. 233; Schneider and Wagemann 2013, p. 309;
Oana et al., p. 167).
The typical case, the Arab League (LAS) is a general-purpose regional organisation created in 1945 that
stretches over North Africa and the Arab Peninsula and with that comprise 22 Arab states. Founded in a
postcolonial region and a setting of nation-building, its unique membership criteria of being an Arab nation
as well as the two original objectives of this organisation are an imprint of this context. Its first core goal
was to reinforce the sovereignty of all newly established Arab states, the second strongly focuses on the
conflict between Israel and Palestine as the League claims to be the core protector and defendant of the
rights (to self-determination) of the Palestinian people (Halliday 2007, p.62). Throughout, the period of its
existence human rights increasingly mattered in the organisation, observable in the creation of different
human rights institutions such as an Arab Charter for Human Rights and an Arab Commission overseeing
the implementation of this Charter (Rishmawi 2013). Besides this post-colonial contexts and the presence
of human rights in the RO, both the record of legitimation as well as conventional assessments of this use
of human rights make the Arab League a typical case. Starting in 1995 this RO makes frequent use of human
rights legitimation. While not using it every year, it is positioned among the most regular HR legitimizers
15compared to all other ROs (cf. also Figure 1 and 2). Researchers examining human rights in the Arab League,
though, concur on the dishonest or instrumental nature of such references and action, describing it as lip-
service or window-dressing (Wajner and Kacowicz 2018; van Hüllen 2015; Zerrougi 2011).
The deviant case, the Caribbean Community is a regional organisation of 15 small island states and coastal
South American countries that similarly emerged in a region marked by its colonial past (Payne 2008;
O'Brien 2011). Besides functional economic pressures, a strong regional identity – Pan-Caribbeanism and
sovereignty concerns, i.e. increasing the small states leverage in foreign policy did and still do influence this
regional integration (Girvan 2018; Braveboy-Wagner 2008). Despite the geographical distance, connections
of this region to their former colonizers, i.e. Great Britain, France and the Netherlands persist, may they be
culturally, economically and for some member states even administratively. This, as well as a generally strong
democratic tradition and a good human rights record, hint to much stronger proximity to the LIO. Within
the regional organisation of CARICOM human rights, however, play only a marginal role. While topics such
as the SDGs, women empowerment, or health – all related to human rights claims – receive a lot of
attention, no institutions exclusively dedicated to human rights exists. Notable exceptions are the Charter
of Civil Society that references human rights in its preamble as well as adjudication by the Caribbean Court
of Justice on human rights despite the absence of an explicit mandate on this matter (Caserta 2018; Kocken
and van Roozendaal 2012). Considering its record of human rights legitimation, it stands in stark contrast
to the Arab League as it refers to this norm only once throughout the entire period of observation. Thus,
CARIOM qualifies well as a deviant, not covered case for this analysis.
III. Plausibility Probe – Comparing ROs in the Global South
The League of Arab States
Hypothesis 1 claims that in Global South ROs human rights legitimation unfolds in addressing additional
(contradictory) audiences determined by key agents in the RO that often have the potential to serve as
intermediary audiences. To examine this hypothesis, I try to identify cues following the four questions as
outlined in Table 1. The first two relate to the presence of normative inconsistency within the region as well
as resource scarcity – cues to a deliberate act of targeting an additional audience with the human rights
legitimation. Ostensibly, an immediate inconsistency is discernible considering the human rights record of
LAS’ member states. In 2017 only five of the 22 member states scored better than three on the “Political
Terror Scale”, meaning that in all other countries “civil and political rights violations have expanded to large
numbers of the population”.12 Similarly, in 2020 only one member, namely Tunisia, was classified as “free”
by Freedom House while a majority scored as “unfree” (Freedom House 2020, p. 26). This is indicative of
an inconsistency of making a claim to commit to the promotion and protection of human rights and the
12 The „Political Terror Scale“ is a large-N data-gathering project established in the 1980s, coding three kinds of reports on HR
abuses (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, US State Department) in currently over 200 countries in order to aggregate
state terror mainly based on violations of civil and political rights, for more information see Gibney, Mark, Linda Cornett, Reed
Wood, Peter Haschke, Daniel Arnon, and Attilio Pisanò. 2018. The Political Terror Scale 1976-2017 and Haschke, Peter (2018):
The Political Terror Scale (PTS) Codebook. Version 1.10, available at website: http://www.politicalterrorscale.org.
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