Relations Between Norms: Conflicts, Collisions, and More?

Abstract

Since the late 1980s norms research has discussed a wide range of questions, asking how norms emerge, how they matter, how they change, and how they work. However, scholars have, in answering these questions, often focused on a single norm. The panel takes a different perspective, looking at relations between two or more norms. Here the panel is especially interested in studying collisions between norms. Norm collisions are understood as instances of incompatible normative expectations which actors perceive to be problematic. Empirically the panel focuses on international organizations as arenas in which these norm collisions come to the fore, studying both collisions within the same and between different organizations. The panel aims to bring papers together who deal with the questions of how norm conflicts are recognized and how international organizations respond to them. The panel is interested in exploring a wide array of IO responses to norm collisions that transcends a predominant focus on legal rules and mechanisms.