Self-Legitimation of the Council of Europe in the Process of Treaty Monitoring

The paper approaches legitimacy and self-legitimation of international organizations (IOs) from the point of view of compliance studies, focusing on the role of IOs in monitoring states’ compliance with international treaties. It adopts a reflexive view on the character of international norms (Wiener 2004), and sees IOs as discursive actors in a process of continuous negotiation and contestation of norms and their application. Self-definition and self-legitimation of IOs are important elements of this discursive construction. In the case of monitoring, IOs’ intervention in states’ affairs is intrusive and potentially highly irritating for the states. The acceptance of the IOs in their monitoring capacity is only possible if their working principles and procedures are perceived as efficient and fair by the states, which raises the stakes of the self-legitimizing effort. This paper distinguishes three elements in the IO’s self-legitimating work within monitoring processes: 1) development and maintenance of a coherent normative apparatus (hierarchy of values, operating principles, and rules of procedure based on them); 2) practice of a consistent self-presentation; 3) creation of a standardized discourse (formulations, structure of reports, ratio of critique and praise). These aspects are analyzed with reference to four types of authority – delegated, rational-legal, moral, and expert (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 20-29), using quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis of the documents making part of a monitoring process and of the discourse produced by the IO to present, explain and justify its role and significance to the state members and other audiences. The case considered in this paper is the monitoring of state compliance by the Council of Europe in a highly sensitive and traditionally domestic issue of national monitories’ protection. A.Wiener (2004), “Contested Compliance: Interventions on the Normative Structure of World Politics”, EJIR 10: 189-234. M.Barnett & M.Finnemore (2004). Rules for the World. Ithaca: Cornell UP.