The UNSC now engages in global governance tasks that go beyond its traditionalfunctions including humanitarian interventions, the erection of highlytransformative interim administrations of occupied territories, the impositionof sanctions directly targeting individuals (some of which violate their basicrights) in its pursuit of the “war on terror,” and the issuing ofbinding resolutions that are legislative and quasi-judicial in form. Thesepractices are Janus-faced: while in some instances they prevent or help rectifyhumanitarian disasters and protect human rights, in others they lead to theevisceration of the rule of law and constitutionalism on all levels of theinternational political system, and undermine the foundational Charterprinciples of sovereign equality and human rights.

In response to the danger that a new form of hegemonic international law and newforms of hierarchical rule – con-dominium inside the UN Charter system,new imperial formations alongside it – are taking shape, I have arguedfor low-intensity constitutionalization as a way to steer the evolution of theuniversal GGI in the international political system in a normatively moreattractive direction. The internal dualist structure of the UN as aconstitutional treaty organization should be retained. But it must be reformedso as to bring it into line with the rule of law and to rectify some of itsworst hierarchical features. Constitutional reform along the lines I havesuggested would help ensure that the rules and decisions made by the SC, its keyorgan, and the actions it sponsors are rights-respecting. It would also createthe possibility of a legal assessment of and response to ultra viresresolutions. Insofar as further constitutionalization would revitalize theprinciple of sovereign equality internal to the UN qua global governanceinstitution, the latter would attain a greater degree of“democratic” legitimacy with respect to its right to rule in itsdesignated domains because all states would have equal standing and a voicewithin the inclusive organization and all would be under its rules. This could,recursively, shore up sovereign equality in the international society of states,counteracting the spillover effects of hierarchy that now occur thanks to thenewly expansive governance role of the UNSC.