| Abstrakt: |
This Article, examining the movement toward inclusivity in global soft law-making, tests the proposition that the formation of regional centers of international institutions facilitates the experience of expanded stakeholder engagement in global soft law development. In-depth country case studies, survey findings, and UNCITRAL working group participation logs between 2000 and 2018, suggest that regional centers such as the UNCITRAL RCAP, while still nascent, have corresponded with an increase in regional consultative contributions to global UNCITRAL Working Group II meetings and have increased perceived levels of engagement and participation amongst regional stakeholders. Such contributions are significant given the backdrop of historically uneven representation in global institutions. The substantive findings of this study, alongside methodological contributions in the design of a new set of indicators tracking dual directional engagement (both from the regional to the center and vice versa), provide useful insights supporting the expansion of regional centers of global institutions in areas with historically limited representation in global law-making, including from within Africa, the Middle East, and South America. Such a movement toward decentralized global legal ordering, far from a glorification of regionalism or parochialism, aims at strengthening global institutions by facilitating a more inclusive, systematic, and holistic incorporation of diverse regional perspectives in the design of global legal instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
