When states and individuals meet: The UN Ombudsperson as a ‘contact point’ between international and world society
| Date | 01 March 2020 |
| Author | Filippo Costa Buranelli,Francesco Giumelli |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117819856402 |
| Published date | 01 March 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117819856402
International Relations
2020, Vol. 34(1) 46 –66
© The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0047117819856402
journals.sagepub.com/home/ire
When states and individuals
meet: The UN Ombudsperson
as a ‘contact point’ between
international and world society
Francesco Giumelli
University of Groningen
Filippo Costa Buranelli
University of St Andrews
Abstract
Interaction between individuals and states is considered a distinctive character of domestic
politics, while international politics is the ‘realm of states’. However, it is becoming more
common to encounter loci where both states and individuals interact at the international level,
such as in the cases of the Special Tribunals for Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Former
Yugoslavia as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC). Within the International Relations
(IR) theory panorama, one would expect the English School of International Relations (ES) to
have the theoretical and analytical tools to conceptualize synergies between states and individuals,
but this is not evident. This article asks, how does the interaction between individuals and states
take place in the ES? We argue that this interaction takes place via ‘contact points’, defined as
those international bodies that bring together states and non-state actors, be they individuals
or groups, interacting on equal grounds in terms of rights and responsibilities towards each
other. The notion of ‘contact point’ is developed inductively by focusing on the Office of the
Ombudsperson to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions
Committee. This research has theoretical implications. We aim to refine, sharpen and advance
both the ES’s theoretical and analytical architecture. The contribution we seek to make is one
that will better equip ES scholars to conceptualize and analyse those secondary institutions that
allow states and individuals to enjoy rights and duties equally. By so doing, we will make possible
for the ES to provide a more fine-grained account for these synergies than other IR theories.
Corresponding author:
Francesco Giumelli, Department of International Relations and International Organization, University of
Groningen, Oude Kijk in’t Jatstraat 26, 9712 EK Groningen, The Netherlands.
Email: f.giumelli@rug.nl
856402IRE0010.1177/0047117819856402International RelationsGiumelli and Costa Buranelli
research-article2019
Article
Giumelli and Costa Buranelli 47
The notion of ‘contact point’ does set a new agenda for the ES, since interactions between
individuals and states are likely to become a constitutive essence of world politics.
Keywords
contact point, English School, Ombudsperson, sanctions, United Nations, world society
Introduction
In international politics, it is now common to encounter loci where both states and indi-
viduals interact by enjoying legal and political rights. For instance, the Special Tribunals
for the notorious conflicts in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Former Yugoslavia
as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC) provide crucial examples of how the
interaction between individuals and states has been formally institutionalized. One may
notice how organizations such as the International Court of Arbitration of the International
Chamber of Commerce and the Permanent Court of Arbitration bring together interests,
rights and responsibilities of both states and non-state parties in the so-called ‘investor-
state’ cases.1 In the same fashion, the General Court, a ‘sub-court’ part of the European
Court of Justice (ECJ), allows ‘natural and legal persons’ to seek justice whenever there
is reason to believe that their rights have been infringed by the European Union (EU).2
Such synergies, mostly denied or neglected by neorealists or neoliberalists due to their
state-centric ontological positions, have been captured in depth by strands of the litera-
ture on global governance and international organizations dealing specifically with
instances of state and non-state intersections in world politics.3 Within the International
Relations (IR) theory panorama, one would expect the English School of International
Relations (henceforth ES) to have the theoretical and analytical tools to conceptualize
and deal with such synergies between states and individuals better than other theories
specifically thanks to its ‘ontological pluralism’ focusing on both states (international
society) and individuals (world society).4 However, notwithstanding its vantage point as
via media between realism and liberalism, the ES has not yet come up with proper theo-
rization of these nexuses and synergies between the two domains despite its analytical
potential to capture diachronically the nuances and underlying practices of a changing
international order.5
Thus, this article asks: how does the interaction between individuals and states take
place in the ES? We argue that this interaction takes place via ‘contact points’, defined as
those international bodies such as offices and tribunals (what in ES terms are called ‘sec-
ondary institutions’) that bring together states and non-states actors, be they individuals
or groups, interacting on more equal grounds in terms of (1) responsibilities and (2)
rights towards each other. By ‘on more equal grounds’, we mean that within contact
points, it is not taken for granted that states’ interests will prevail automatically due to
power dynamics and hierarchical asymmetries, but rather than there is an interaction
between states and individuals, the outcome of which may be in favour of states as much
as in favour of individuals. When the latter happens, states’ interests can prevail again
only at higher political and reputational costs, as will be shown below. In this article, the
notion of ‘contact point’ is developed inductively by focusing on the Office of the
To continue reading
Request your trial