Institutional Innovation by Treaty Bodies of International Organization: Strategies of Maximizing Authority and Legitimacy

Monitoring compliance of states with treaties and international standards is a common function of international organizations (IOs), which is usually performed by expert sub-units – treaty bodies. Treaty bodies act within a complex institutional and normative environment where they interact with the IO’s political and administrative units, state parties, other IOs and interest groups. In this setting treaty bodies are comparatively weak and need to mobilize all possible authority resources to perform their function efficiently. In this paper, I consider the ways in which treaty bodies expand their authority by using existing institutional arrangements and introducing institutional innovations. These innovations include, namely, adaptation of ways in which treaty bodies interpret and contextualize international norms, and interact and communicate with other institutional actors. To understand how treaty bodies innovate to maximize their autonomous influence I apply insights from sociology of organizations on strategies which organizations use to enhance their legitimacy and authority vis-à-vis stakeholders. The focus on relatively new monitoring procedures, such as the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), allows to better identify innovation and its impact in subsequent rounds of monitoring.