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Intergovernmental Organizations and the Possibility of Institutional Learning: Self-Reflection and Internal Reform in the Wake of Moral Failure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2020

Toni Erskine
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Abstract

One type of change that has lurked at the edges of scholarly discussions of international politics—often assumed, invoked, and alluded to, but rarely interrogated—is learning. Learning entails a very particular type of change. It is deliberate, internal, transformative, and peaceful (in the sense of being uncoerced). In this contribution to the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” I ask whether intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) can learn in a way that is comparable to the paradigmatic learning of individual human beings. In addressing this question, I take three steps. First, I explore references to corporate entities “learning” within the discipline of international relations (IR) and ask whether what is being proposed is, in fact, genuine learning by the organizations themselves. Second, I attempt to construct a robust account of institutional learning that departs from these conceptions and acknowledges instead the self-reflection and structural transformation that I argue learning at the corporate level requires. Third, for the purpose of illustration, I turn briefly to the UN following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the slaughter of more than eight thousand men and boys outside Srebrenica in 1995 to identify examples of each stage of institutional learning. Finally, I offer three provisional claims about my proposed conception of institutional learning that warrant attention in future work. Namely, I suggest that institutional learning: (1) cannot be equated with moral progress; (2) is possible despite formal organizations being incapable of emotional responses such as shame or regret; and, perhaps most controversially, (3) can occur at the level of the IGO without prior or parallel learning taking place at the level of the state or individual human actor.

Keywords

learningintergovernmental organizationsUnited NationsUN reformmoral responsibilitymoral failureagencycorporate responsibilityresponsibility to protect (RtoP)RwandaSrebrenicagenocide
Type
Roundtable: International Institutions and Peaceful Change
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , Winter 2020 , pp. 503 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

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Footnotes

An early version of this paper was presented at the International Institutions and Peaceful Change workshop held at Griffith University on February 24, 2020. I am very grateful to Kai He, Anders Wivel, and T. V. Paul for the invitation to participate, and to all the workshop participants for their constructive comments—especially Sara Davies, who was a superb discussant. I am also indebted to Alex Bellamy, Luke Glanville, Cecilia Jacob, Brendan Sargeant, and Wes Widmaier for their incisive written comments and to Sheena Smith and Xueyin Zha for research assistance.

References

NOTES

1 Notable exceptions in which the concept of learning has received sustained attention in the discipline of international relations (IR) include Haas, Ernst B., When Knowledge Is Power: Three Models of Change in International Organizations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar; and Levy, Jack S., “Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield,” International Organization 48, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 279–312Google Scholar.

2 The label “structured institution” is used by, inter alia, Shepsle, Kenneth A., “Rational Choice Institutionalism,” in Rhodes, R. A. W., Binder, Sarah A., and Rockman, Bert A., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 27Google Scholar.

3 See, inter alia, Toni Erskine, “Assigning Responsibilities to Institutional Moral Agents: The Case of States and Quasi-States,” Ethics & International Affairs 15, no. 2 (September 2001), pp. 67–85; Toni Erskine, “Locating Responsibility: The Problem of Moral Agency in International Relations,” in Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal, eds., The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 699–707; Toni Erskine, “Coalitions of the Willing and Responsibilities to Protect: Informal Associations, Enhanced Capacities, and Shared Moral Burdens,” Ethics & International Affairs 28, no. 1 (March 2014), pp. 115–45; and Toni Erskine, Locating Responsibility: Institutional Moral Agency in International Relations (in progress). I suggest that IGOs tend to be “transient” institutional moral agents because they balance intergovernmental structures and deliberative processes with a commitment to member states’ sovereignty in ways that can, intermittently, impede their capacity for purposive action at the corporate level. On this point, see Toni Erskine, “‘Blood on the UN's Hands’? Assigning Duties and Apportioning Blame to an Intergovernmental Organisation,” Global Society 18, no. 1 (2004), pp. 21–42, at p. 41.

4 Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 4, 11–13.

5 Ibid., p. 12.

6 Richard Price, “Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines,” International Organization 52, no. 3 (Summer 1998), pp. 613–44, at p. 617.

7 Ibid., p. 620.

8 G. John Ikenberry, “The International Spread of Privatization Policies: Inducements, Learning, and ‘Policy Bandwagoning,’” in Ezra N. Suleiman and John Waterbury, eds., The Political Economy of Public Sector Reform and Privatization (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), pp. 88–109, at p. 103.

9 Finnemore, National Interests in International Society, p. 12.

10 Levy, “Learning and Foreign Policy,” p. 296.

11 Ibid., p. 287.

12 Ibid., p. 311.

13 Ibid., pp. 283, 296.

14 Haas, When Knowledge Is Power, p. 26.

15 Ibid., p. 26.

16 This brief survey is far from exhaustive. In Locating Responsibility (in progress), I address additional accounts of learning in IR that also depart in significant ways from the conception that I am about to propose, including, for example, those offered by Emanuel Adler in World Ordering: A Social Theory of Cognitive Evolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Alexander Wendt in Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

17 I elaborate on this point in Toni Erskine, “Making Sense of ‘Responsibility’ in International Relations: Key Questions and Concepts,” introduction to Toni Erskine, ed., Can Institutions Have Responsibilities? Collective Moral Agency and International Relations (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 5–6.

18 The WTO, for example, has the EU as one of its founding members.

19 Erskine, “Assigning Responsibilities to Institutional Moral Agents,” pp. 73–4.

20 Such a formal decision-making structure is one of the five characteristics that I argue must be possessed by a collectivity to qualify as an “institutional moral agent.” See, inter alia, Erskine, “Coalitions of the Willing and Responsibilities to Protect,” p. 119. Although I was initially inspired by Peter French's account of “corporate moral personhood” in offering this criterion, the work of Philip Pettit and Christian List on why certain decision-making structures make group agency possible has also been influential. See Peter A. French, chaps. 3–4 in Collective and Corporate Responsibility (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); Philip Pettit, chap. 5 in A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Christian List and Philip Pettit, Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

21 The invocation of the veto by one of the five permanent members (P-5) of the Security Council effectively replaces a majority voting decision-making procedure with a requirement for unanimity. The existence of the veto provision thereby contributes to my classification of the UN as a “transient” institutional moral agent, as the exercise of the veto undermines both the UN's decision-making capacity and the viability of describing it as an agent in its own right. (The practice of abstaining by P-5 members is, however, compatible with the moral agency of the UN at the corporate level.) See Erskine, “‘Blood on the UN's Hands’?,” p. 30, n.27; p. 36; and p. 36, n.46.

22 I address the implications of different models of decision-making in IGOs in greater detail in Erskine, chap. 4 in Locating Responsibility: Institutional Moral Agency and International Relations.

23 In January 1999, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution requesting that the secretary-general provide a comprehensive assessment of the massacre in Srebrenica: United Nations General Assembly, “The Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” A/RES/53/35, January 13, 1999, para. 18, undocs.org/en/A/RES/53/35. In March 1999, the UN secretary-general commissioned, with the approval of the Security Council, an independent inquiry into the UN's response to the genocide in Rwanda. See “Letter Dated 26 March 1999 from the President of the Security Council Addressed to the Secretary-General,” letter from Qin Huasun to Kofi Annan, S/1999/340, United Nations Documents, undocs.org/en/S/1999/340.

24 United Nations General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35: The Fall of Srebrenica, A/54/549, November 15, 1999, undocs.org/en/A/54/549; and United Nations Security Council, Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, S/1999/1257, December 16, 1999, undocs.org/en/S/1999/1257.

25 UN Security Council, Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, p. 3.

26 UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35, p. 108.

27 The General Assembly adopted a resolution to welcome the report on Srebrenica and encourage the concerns identified in it to be addressed to prevent recurrence: United Nations General Assembly, “The Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” A/RES/54/119, December 22, 1999, undocs.org/en/A/RES/54/119. Moreover, the president of the Security Council, “on behalf of the Security Council,” acknowledged the Srebrenica report and stressed “the importance that lessons be learned.” See United Nations Security Council, “Statement by the President of the Security Council,” S/PRST/2000/23, July 13, 2000, undocs.org/en/S/PRST/2000/23. The following year, the General Assembly passed another resolution acknowledging the recommendations stemming from the secretary-general's report on Srebrenica. See United Nations General Assembly, “The Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” A/RES/55/24, January 15, 2001, para. 16, undocs.org/en/A/RES/55/24. The inquiry into the genocide in Rwanda was submitted to the Security Council upon completion, and in a formal meeting its recommendations were welcomed and discussed: United Nations Security Council, 4127th meeting, S/PV.4127 (meeting minutes, April 14, 2000), undocs.org/en/S/PV.4127.

28 Richard Holbrooke, UN Security Council, 4127th meeting (participant's contribution to meeting), p. 8.

29 UN Security Council, Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, recommendations 4, 8, 9, and 10; UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35, paras. 486, 496; and UN Security Council, 4127th meeting, pp. 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 22, 23.

30 UN Security Council, Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, p. 42; also cited in United Nations General Assembly, Early Warning, Assessment and the Responsibility to Protect: Report of the Secretary-General, A/64/864, July 14, 2010, p. 3, undocs.org/en/A/64/864.

31 UN General Assembly, Early Warning, Assessment and the Responsibility to Protect, p. 3, para. 8.

32 United Nations Security Council, annex to “Letter Dated 12 July 2004 from the Secretary-General Addressed to the President of the Security Council,” letter from Kofi A. Annan, S/2004/567, undocs.org/en/S/2004/567; and UN General Assembly, Early Warning, Assessment and the Responsibility to Protect, pp. 5–6.

33 In 2009, Ban Ki-moon noted that, nine years after the reports on Rwanda and Srebrenica, “many of their institutional recommendations . . . have not been fully implemented.” Ban Ki-moon, Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: Report of the Secretary-General, A/63/677, January 12, 2009, para. 6, undocs.org/en/A/63/677.

34 UN Security Council, Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, p. 3; UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35, para. 490; and UN Security Council, 4127th meeting, pp. 3, 10, 20.

35 UN Security Council, Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, pp. 53, 57, recommendation 3; UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35, paras. 502, 505; and UN Security Council, 4127th meeting, pp. 13, 14, 17, 22, 24.

36 United Nations General Assembly, “Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly on 16 September 2005: 2005 World Summit Outcome,” A/RES/60/1, October 24, 2005, paras. 138 and 139, undocs.org/en/A/Res/60/1. For an incisive overview, see Alex J. Bellamy, Global Politics and the Responsibility to Protect: From Words to Deeds (New York: Routledge, 2011).

37 See United Nations General Assembly, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility; Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A/59/565, December 2, 2004, undocs.org/en/A/59/565, para. 203; and Kofi Annan, In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All; Report of the Secretary-General, A/59/2005, March 21, 2005, undocs.org/en/A/59/2005.

38 UN General Assembly, A More Secure World, paras. 87, 88, and 201; and UN General Assembly, Implementing the Responsibility to Protect, para. 5.

39 UN General Assembly, “Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly on 16 September 2005,” paras. 138 and 139; United Nations Security Council, “Resolution 1674 (2006), Adopted by the Security Council at its 5430th Meeting, on 28 April 2006,” S/RES/1674 (2006), undocs.org/S/RES/1674(2006).

40 Changes to peacekeeping practices and mandates are another example of structural reform, which, combined with critical self-reflection, have also constituted institutional learning on the part of the UN following the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica. These reforms were implemented in accordance with Security Council– and General Assembly–endorsed recommendations made in the Brahimi Report: Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, A/55/305, S/2000/809, August 21, 2000 undocs.org/A/55/305. The recommendations themselves followed—and responded to—failures highlighted in the reports on Rwanda and Srebrenica. This further example is beyond the scope of this short piece but will be addressed in future work. I am grateful to Alex Bellamy and Cecilia Jacob for discussions of this additional example.

41 This point has its genesis in my response to the empirical constructivist claim that normative change might entail moral progress. See Richard M. Price, ed., Moral Limit and Possibility in World Politics (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and my response in “Whose Progress, Which Morals? Constructivism, Normative IR Theory and the Limits and Possibilities of Studying Ethics in World Politics,” International Theory 4, no. 3 (November 2012), pp. 449–68.

42 Notably, elsewhere Finnemore (writing with Kathryn Sikkink) seems to acknowledge this point while reflecting on “esteem” and “feelings of embarrassment, anxiety, guilt, and shame” in relation to states: “It is difficult,” they concede, “to generalize to the state level from research on esteem done at the individual level.” Finnemore and Sikkink note that they rely instead on an “analog” to states feeling discomfort by focusing on state leaders conforming to norms “in order to avoid disapproval.” See Finnemore, Martha and Sikkink, Kathryn, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998), pp. 887–917CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 903–4.

43 O'Neill, Onora, Towards Justice and Virtue: A Constructive Account of Practical Reasoning (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 160CrossRefGoogle Scholar, fn. 6.

44 Aspects of Bernard Williams's notion of “agent regret” are useful here—or, at least, an institutional analogue of agent regret has promise. See Williams, Bernard, Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers, 1973–1980 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 27–31Google Scholar. I explore this concept in the context of institutional learning in chapter 5 of Locating Responsibility.