CAPAS RESEARCH PROJECT - Holger Hestermeyer The Law and Policy of Disintegration
The rules-based system of international governance is under attack. On the one hand, it is overwhelmed by the demands imposed on it by a world in crisis. Catastrophes ranging from climate change to the mass-extinction of species and pandemics demand international cooperation like never before. Far from being scaled up, however, international governance is crumbling. The Security Council of the United Nations is notoriously blocked. The World Trade Organization seems incapable of reaching agreement and, worse, the highest body of its "judicial branch"— the so-called “Appellate Body” – has become dysfunctional. In Europe, the United Kingdom left the European Union without a plan for how to replace the close cooperation that characterizes the Union. To respond to these challenges the project intends to inquire what drives the disintegration processes of the international system and how they compare to past processes of disintegration, develop alternative visions for international governance and work on legal models for disintegration processes.