nach oben

The Review of International Organizations

Erschienen in:

01.07.2015

Transnational advocacy and domestic law: International NGOs and the design of freedom of information laws

verfasst von: Daniel Berliner

Erschienen in: The Review of International Organizations | Ausgabe 1/2016

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

Can international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) influence domestic policy? This paper offers new quantitative evidence of the impact of INGOs in one specific policy area—Freedom of Information (FOI) laws—as well as highlighting an under-studied mechanism of INGO influence on the design of domestic laws. I test this argument by examining the effect of legal analyses of draft FOI legislation published by the INGO Article 19. These analyses provide expert legal assessments and make normative evaluations—both information politics and symbolic politics. I find that in countries in which Article 19 conducted legal analyses, the design of the subsequently passed FOI laws was significantly stronger than in countries that were not subject to such analyses. I demonstrate that this finding is not an artifact of Article 19’s selection process. I also present suggestive evidence that highlights symbolic politics, not information politics, as the more salient mechanism. Finally, I examine the process of FOI drafting and adoption in Serbia to illustrate the argument and specific mechanisms at work.

Vorheriger Artikel Why do some international institutions contain strong dispute settlement provisions? New evidence from preferential trade agreements

Nächster Artikel William Phelen. 2015. In place of inter-state retaliation: The European Union’s rejection of WTO-style trade sanctions (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Nur mit Berechtigung zugänglich

As in True and Mintrom (2001) and Busby (2010).

An extensive literature has focused on legal translation as the way in which foreign legal forms or standards are reinterpreted to fit new domestic contexts (see, among many others, Merry (2006), Dezalay and Garth (2002), Langer (2004), Maman (2006)). In this paper I use the term “translation” instead to mean the extent to which domestic laws either meet or fail to meet international standards and best practices, conceptualizing legal design on a single “weak-strong” dimension for the purposes of simplicity.

A full list of all 61 indicators and the number of points associated with each is available in the Online Appendix, available on this journal’s website and the author’s website.

I also exclude two analyses published so shortly before passage that it is doubtful that they can be considered eligible to have had an impact: One analysis in Slovakia, published 2 days before passage, and one analysis (out of four total) in Macedonia, published 15 days before passage. Main results are robust to including these, however (full results in the Online Appendix). Main results are also robust to excluding two analyses (one in Croatia and one in Serbia) that were of civil society draft laws rather than of government drafts (full results in the Online Appendix).

Results in the Online Appendix show that the main findings are robust to using the larger dataset of all FOI laws, including those passed before 1999. In both the full and limited samples of FOI laws, the Cook Islands, Kosovo, and Taiwan are dropped due to missing data on most independent variables.

Some FOI laws have also been amended after original passage, sometimes in positive and sometimes in negative ways with regard to international standards. The processes by which such amendments are proposed, the ways in which different domestic and international actors respond to them, and whether or not they are ultimately successful, are complex and outside the scope of the present study. Every RTI Rating included in this analysis was coded using the text of the FOI law as originally passed, before such amendments, except in eight cases. The Online Appendix discusses and addresses potential complications for the analysis resulting from these cases. The main results are robust to several possible alternative approaches.

A robustness check in the Online Appendix uses the untransformed year instead.

For six small countries (Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Belize and Iceland are not included in the main post-1998 dataset) with missing Polity data, I imputed values based on the Freedom House democracy measure. Results are robust to exclusion of these observations, or to use of the Freedom House democracy measure instead of Polity2 (see Online Appendix).

Email communication, November 12, 2012.

Another possibility, in which local civil society or legislators seek out Article 19’s involvement rather than Article 19 selecting countries to intervene, is similar in terms of the implied direction of bias. Insofar as such local decisions to seek international expertise are non-random, they should be more likely where local actors are concerned that the legislation being drafted is problematic. I thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.

Interview 2, Belgrade, Serbia, May 20, 2013, YUCOM (Lawyers Committee for Human Rights). Interview 3, Belgrade, Serbia, May 20, 2013, YUCOM (Lawyers Committee for Human Rights). Interview 4, Email, June 2, 2013, Transparency Serbia. See also Article 19 Annual Reports (2003a, p. 15; 2004, p. 14).

Interview 2, Belgrade, Serbia, May 20, 2013, YUCOM (Lawyers Committee for Human Rights).

Interview 1, Belgrade, Serbia, May 20, 2013, Commission for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection. Interview 2, Belgrade, Serbia, May 20, 2013, YUCOM (Lawyers Committee for Human Rights).

All quotes from parliamentary transcripts have been translated from the original Serbian.

This publication was endorsed in 2000 by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression.

Interview 2, Belgrade, Serbia, May 20, 2013, YUCOM (Lawyers Committee for Human Rights).

Interview 4, Email, June 2, 2013, Transparency Serbia.

See http://www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/environmental_law/elp_work/elc/elp_elc_about_history.

See http://www.protectionproject.org/activities/advocacy/#assisting.

See http://www.stopvaw.org/uploads/ahr_dvlegalreform_work.pdf.

Ackerman, J., & Sandoval-Ballesteros, I. (2006). The global explosion of freedom of information laws. Administrative Law Review, 58(1), 85–130.

Altonji, J. G., Elder, T. E., & Taber, C. R. (2005). Selection on observed and unobserved variables: assessing the effectiveness of Catholic schools. Journal of Political Economy, 113(1), 151–184.CrossRef

Article 19. (2003a). Annual review – July 2003. Available at: http://www.article19.org/data/files/annual_reports_and_accounts/2003-annual-report.pdf.

Article 19. (2003b). Updated briefing note on the Serbian draft Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance (as amended). Available at: http://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/analysis/serbia.foi.b.03.pdf.

Article 19. (2004). Annual review 2004. Available at: http://www.article19.org/data/files/annual_reports_and_accounts/2004-annual-report.pdf.

Banisar, D. (2006). Freedom of information around the world 2006: A global survey of access to government information laws. Privacy International.

Beck, T., Demirguc-Kunt, A., & Levine, R. (2000). Law, politics, and finance. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Bell, S. R., Tavishi, B., Clay, K. C., & Murdie, A. (2014). Taking the fight to them: neighborhood human rights organizations and domestic protest. British Journal of Political Science, 44(4), 853–875.

Bell, S. R., Clay, K. C., & Murdie, A. (2012). Neighborhood watch: spatial effects of human rights INGOs. The Journal of Politics, 74(2), 354–368.

Bellows, J., & Miguel, E. (2009). War and local collective action in Sierra Leone. Journal of Public Economics, 93(11), 1144–1157.CrossRef

Berliner, D. (2014). The political origins of transparency. The Journal of Politics, 76(2), 479–491.CrossRef

Berliner, D., & Erlich, A. (2015). Competing for transparency: political competition and institutional reform in Mexican states. American Political Science Review, 109(1), 110–128.CrossRef

Busby, J. W. (2010). Moral movements and foreign policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Bussell, J. (2010). Why get technical? Corruption and the politics of public service reform in the Indian states. Comparative Political Studies, 43(10), 1230–1257.CrossRef

Bussell, J. (2011). Explaining cross-national variation in government adoption of new technologies. International Studies Quarterly, 55(1), 267–280.CrossRef

Centre for Law and Democracy. (2011). Global RTI rating. Available at: http://www.law-democracy.org/?page_id=1003.

Charnovitz, S. (2006). Nongovernmental organizations and international law. American Journal of International Law, 100(2), 348–372.

Cichowski, R. A. (2007). The European court and civil society: Litigation, mobilization and governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

DeMeritt, J. (2012). International organizations and government killing: does naming and shaming save lives? International Interactions, 38(5), 597–621.CrossRef

Dezalay, Y., & Garth, B. G. (Eds.). (2002). Global prescriptions: The production, exportation, and importation of a new legal orthodoxy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Edmunds, T. (2009). Illiberal Resilience in Serbia. Journal of Democracy, 20(1), 128–142.CrossRef

Fagan, A. (2010). Europe’s Balkan dilemma: Paths to civil society or state-building? London: I.B. Tauris.

Finnemore, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). International norm dynamics and political change. International Organization, 52(4), 887–917.CrossRef

Florini, A. (2000). The third force: The rise of transnational civil society. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Florini, A. (2007). The right to know: Transparency for an open world. New York: Columbia University Press.

Franklin, J. C. (2008). Shame on you: the impact of human rights criticism on political repression in Latin America. International Studies Quarterly, 52(1), 187–211.CrossRef

Freedom House. (2004). Nations in transit: Serbia and Montenegro. Available at: https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2004/serbia-and-montenegro.

Global Integrity. (2007). Global integrity scorecard: Germany. Available at: http://report.globalintegrity.org/reportPDFS/2007/Germany.pdf.

Gourevitch, P. A., Lake, D. A., & Stein, J. G. (Eds.). (2012). The credibility of transnational NGOs: When virtue is not enough. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Haas, P. M. (1989). Do regimes matter? Epistemic communities and Mediterranean pollution control. International Organization, 43(3), 377–403.CrossRef

Hafner-Burton, E. M. (2008). Sticks and stones: naming and shaming the human rights enforcement problem. International Organization, 62(4), 689–716.CrossRef

Hafner-Burton, E. M., & Tsutsui, K. (2005). Human rights in a globalizing world: the paradox of empty promises. American Journal of Sociology, 110(5), 1373–1411.CrossRef

Hathaway, O. A. (2002). Do human rights treaties make a difference? Yale Law Journal, 111(8), 1935–2042.CrossRef

Hendrix, C. S., & Wong, W. H. (2013). When is the pen truly mighty? Regime type and the efficacy of naming and shaming in curbing human rights abuses. British Journal of Political Science, 43, 1–22.CrossRef

Hollyer, J. R., Peter Rosendorff, B., & Vreeland, J. R. (2011). Democracy and transparency. Journal of Politics, 73(4), 1191–1205.CrossRef

Keck, M. E., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders: Advocacy networks in international politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Krain, M. (2012). J’accuse! does naming and shaming perpetrators reduce the severity of genocides or politicides? International Studies Quarterly, 56(3), 574–589.CrossRef

Lake, M. (2014). Organizing hypocrisy: providing legal accountability for human rights violations in areas of limited statehood. International Studies Quarterly, 58(3), 515–526.CrossRef

Langer, M. (2004). From legal transplants to legal translations: the globalization of plea bargaining and the americanization thesis in criminal procedure. Harvard International Law Journal, 45, 1.

Lilić, S. & Milenković, D. (2004). Campaign for the adoption on the Law on Free Access to Information: Chronological overview of activities. In S. Lilić, & D. Milenković (Eds.) Free access to information. Belgrade, Serbia: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. 121–131.

Maman, D. (2006). Diffusion and translation: business groups in the new Israeli corporate law. Sociological Perspectives, 49(1), 115–135.CrossRef

McClean, T. (2011). Institutions and transparency: Where does Freedom of information work best?” Paper presented at the 1st Global Conference on Transparency Research, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ. May 19–20, 2011.

Mendel, T. (2009). The Right to information in Latin America: A comparative legal survey. UNESCO.

Merry, S. E. (2006). Transnational human rights and local activism: mapping the middle. American Anthropologist, 108(1), 38–51.CrossRef

Mitchell, R. B. (1998). Sources of transparency: information systems in international regimes. International Studies Quarterly, 42(1), 109–130.CrossRef

Michener, G. (2010). The surrender of secrecy: explaining the emergence of strong access to information laws in Latin America. Dissertation. University of Texas, Austin.

Michener, G. (2011). FOI laws around the world. Journal of Democracy, 22(2).

Michener, G. (2015a). How cabinet size and legislative control shape the strength of transparency laws. Governance, 28(1), 77–94.CrossRef

Michener, G. (2005b). Assessing Freedom of Information in Latin America a Decade Later: Illuminating a Transparency Causal Mechanism. Latin American Politics and Society. doi:10.1111/j.1548-2456.2015.00275.x.

Murdie, A. M., & Davis, D. R. (2012). Shaming and blaming: using events data to assess the impact of human rights INGOs. International Studies Quarterly, 56(1), 1–16.CrossRef

Murdie, A., & Hicks, A. (2013). Can international nongovernmental organizations boost government services? The case of health. International Organization, 67(3), 541–573.CrossRef

Otvoreni Parlament. (2004). Transcripts and calendar of parliamentary sessions: October 26, 2004. Available at: http://www.otvoreniparlament.rs/2004/10/26.

Peisakhin, L., & Pinto, P. (2010). Is transparency an effective anti‐corruption strategy? Evidence from a field experiment in India. Regulation & Governance, 4(3), 261–280.

Pešić, V. (2007). State capture and widespread corruption in Serbia. CEPS Working Document No. 262. Centre for European Policy Studies.

Price, R. (1998). Reversing the gun sights: transnational civil society targets land mines. International Organization, 52(3), 613–644.CrossRef

Puddephatt, A. (2009). Exploring the role of civil society in the formulation and adoption of access to information laws. Access to Information Working Paper Series. World Bank Institute.

Raustiala, K. (1997). States, NGOs, and international environmental institutions. International Studies Quarterly, 41(4), 719–740.CrossRef

Relly, J. E. (2012). Examining a model of vertical accountability: a cross-national study of the influence of information access on the control of corruption. Government Information Quarterly, 29(3), 335–345.CrossRef

Risse, T., & Sikkink, K. (1999). The socialization of human rights norms into domestic practices: Introduction. In T. Risse, S. C. Ropp, & K. Sikkink (Eds.), The power of human rights: International norms and domestic change. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Roberts, A. (2006). Blacked out: Government secrecy in the information age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Roberts, A. (2010). A great and revolutionary law? The first four years of India’s Right to Information Act. Public Administration Review, 70(6), 925–933.CrossRef

Ron, J., Ramos, H., & Rodgers, K. (2005). Transnational information politics: NGO human rights reporting, 1986-2000. International Studies Quarterly, 49(3), 557–588.CrossRef

Serbia Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection. 2012. Report on Implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the Law on Personal Data Protection in 2011. Available at: http://www.poverenik.org.rs/images/stories/dokumentacija-nova/izvestajiPoverenika/2011/eng2011izvestajpoverenika.pdf.

Simmons, B. A. (2009). Mobilizing for human rights: International law in domestic politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

True, J., & Mintrom, M. (2001). Transnational networks and policy diffusion: the case of gender mainstreaming. International Studies Quarterly, 45(1), 27–57.CrossRef

Titel: Transnational advocacy and domestic law: International NGOs and the design of freedom of information laws
verfasst von: Daniel Berliner
Publikationsdatum: 01.07.2015
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: The Review of International Organizations / Ausgabe 1/2016
Print ISSN: 1559-7431
Elektronische ISSN: 1559-744X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-015-9228-6

Springer Professional

Abstract

Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Zugang zu Ihrer Lizenz zu erhalten.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Weitere Artikel der Ausgabe 1/2016

Leslie Johns. 2015. Strengthening international courts: The hidden costs of legalization. (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press)

The effects of the IMF on expropriation of foreign firms

Democratic memberships in international organizations: Sources of institutional design

William Phelen. 2015. In place of inter-state retaliation: The European Union’s rejection of WTO-style trade sanctions (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Why do some international institutions contain strong dispute settlement provisions? New evidence from preferential trade agreements

Credibility, preferences, and bilateral investment treaties