The Pluralism of Global Administrative Law

As public power is increasingly exercised in structures of globalgovernance, principles of domestic law and politics are extendedto the global level, with serious repercussions for the structureof international law. Yet, as this article seeks to show forthe emerging global administrative law, this extension is oftenproblematic. Using administrative law mechanisms to enhancethe accountability of global regulation faces the problem offundamental contestation over the question of to whom globalgovernance should be accountable. National, international andcosmopolitan constituencies are competing for primacy, and thisresults in an often disorderly interplay of accountability mechanismsat different levels and in different regimes. This pluraliststructure, based on pragmatic accommodation rather than cleardecisions, strongly contrasts with the ideals of coherence andunity in modern constitutionalism and domestic administrativelaw. However, given the structure of global society, it is likelyto endure and it is also normatively preferable to alternative,constitutionalist approaches. It helps avoid the friction thatmay result from a federal-type distribution of powers and thepractical problems of a consociational order, and by denyingall constituencies primacy it reflects the legitimacy deficitsof each of them. Mirroring divergent views on the right scopeof the political order, it also respects everybody’s equalright to political participation. A pluralist global administrativelaw thus presents an alternative to problematic domestic modelsfor ensuring accountability in the circumstances of global governance.