From Consent to Consultation: Law, Legitimacy and Power in the Protection of Global Public Goods
Modern international law with its emphasis on sovereign equality has come under pressure for its cumbersome procedures and the resulting difficulty to deliver on global public goods. In this paper, I inquire into how international law has dealt with this challenge and trace processes of change in key institutions of international law - jurisdiction and the powers of international institutions - driven by arguments from global public goods. I find them to have led to a proceduralisation of protection - to a turn from consent to consultation - and to reflect the broader ambiguity between input- and output-oriented legitimacy frames in global governance. This signals an important transformation of the international legal order, yet one which also erodes protections for countries from being governed by others.