International Public Authority provides the focus for a number of projects analyzing the public authority exercised by international institutions. A significant part of world public opinion regards international institutions with considerable ambivalence: many of these institutions have become powerful; quite a few of their activities raise serious doubts; nonetheless, they should be vested with more powers in order to better further common interests. World public opinion voices legitimacy concerns alongside regulatory demands which poses a serious challenge for these institutions. We share this ambivalent view of international institutions. In response, we propose a theory of international public law. The purpose of this theory is to identify, reconstruct and develop that segment of public international law that governs the exercise of international public authority. Thereby, we aim at articulating world public opinion in the language of international law. International public law stands for the reconstruction and development of the legal regimes governing the activities of international institutions in light of their publicness. In this way, legal scholarship may contribute to improving the legitimacy and the effectiveness of these activities. The research project on the exercise of international public authority shares this purpose with similar projects such as Global Administrative Law or Global Constitutionalism.
Read our lead paper explaining the aims, objectives, and background of the project:
New Publication: "International Judicial Legitimacy. New Voices and Approaches", edited by Hélène Ruiz Fabri, Andre Nunes Chaib, Ingo Venzke and Armin von Bogdandy
New Publications on International Public Authority and the COVID-19 Pandemic:
Participants of the workshop "The End of International Public Authority? Contestation, Crisis, and Resilience of International Institutions" (28 - 29 November 2019, MPI Heidelberg)
Lead Publications on Courts:
Armin von Bogdandy and Ingo Venzke: In Whose Name? A Public Law Theory of International Adjudication. OUP 2014, 304 p.
Armin von Bogdandy and Ingo Venzke (eds.): International Judicial Lawmaking. Springer 2012, XVII, 509p., ISBN 978-3-642-29586-7. Pre-published as a special issue in German Law Journal 12 (2011), issue 5.
Lead Publication on International Organizations:
Armin von Bogdandy, Matthias Goldmann, and Ingo Venzke: From Public International to International Public Law: Translating World Public Opinion into International Public Authority, European Journal of International Law 28/1 (2017) 115-145
Armin von Bogdandy, Rüdiger Wolfrum, Jochen von Bernstorff, Philipp Dann, and Matthias Goldmann (eds.): The Exercise of Public Authority by International Institutions: Advancing International Institutional Law, Springer 2010, 1005 pages, ISBN 978-3-642-04530-1.
A large number of the contributions to this book were pre-published as a special issue of the German Law Journal 9 (2008), issue 11.
Since 2013, the project has been affiliated with the Cluster of Excellence "Formation of Normative Orders" at Goethe University Frankfurt through a cluster project on the exercise of public authority on the international, supranational and domestic levels, carried out at the Max Planck Institute.
Since 2015, project members have worked on issues of International Health Governance.
Since 2020, the project is closely affiliated with the Max Planck Research Group MAGGI (The Multiplication of Authorities in Global Governance Institutions), led by Janne Mende. The group analyzes the power and the legitimacy of global governance actors, focusing on the United Nations and the European Union.
The Project is supported by a network of researchers at other institutions:
Principal Investigator: Armin von Bogdandy
Project Manager: Matthias Goldmann and Silvia Steininger
Project Members: Kanad Bagchi, Franz Ebert, Martin Jarrett, Achilles Skordas, Mateja Steinbrück Platise, Pedro Villarreal
Former Project Managers: Jochen von Bernstorff, Philipp Dann, Isabel Feichtner, Ingo Venzke
