Resisting (Il)legitimate International Institutions

In this paper, we explore three challenges to the application of the ethics of resistance to injustice to acts of principled resistance against international institutions. First, while domestic resistance is often justified with reference to the aim of establishing or restoring democratic institutions, international institutions are widely held to be legitimate even if not democratic—thus significantly shrinking the admissible aims of resistance. Second and related, some international institutions—quite unlike domestic political institutions—have overwhelmingly content-dependent (rather than content-independent) criteria of legitimacy: for instance, the WHO or the institutions of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This, again, limits the admissible set of reasons for justified resistance, and requires considerable expertise to decide when resistance can be justified. Third, individuals are typically not directly subject to the authority of international institutions: their authority is mediated by the authority of member states over individuals. Consequently, individuals have limited means to unambiguously resist international illegitimate institutions, and in most cases narrowly targeted acts of resistance are not available in resistance against such institutions. These challenges seem to carve out a rather narrow conceptual and normative space for justified resistance against international institutions. Our response to these challenges outlines a theory of justified resistance against illegitimate international institutions, with implications as to when resistance against legitimate international institutions can be justified.