The Role of International Organizations in Fostering Legitimacy in Dispute Resolution

Abstract

This chapter addresses the role of international organizations in promoting the legitimacy in and effectiveness of alternative dispute resolution regimes. Defining legitimacy as the right to rule, allowing the parties to accept and comply with the rulings of dispute resolution regimes, the chapter argues that international institutions initially possess very little ‘source legitimacy’ or ‘constitutive legitimacy’ and are sometimes seen as lacking ‘process legitimacy’ or ‘outcome legitimacy’. Using the framework of source, process, and outcome, the chapter argues that international organizations can play a strategic role in enhancing the source and process legitimacy of alternative dispute settlement regimes, and therefore the effectiveness of these regimes by embodying and endorsing in their work key values such as procedural justice, neutrality, and independence. The chapter further suggests that international organizations have an incredibly powerful role in supplementing the legitimacy of alternative dispute resolution regimes through avenues that are created by virtue of their institutional work and knowledge.