Sustainable development, normative development and the legitimacy of decision-making

The legitimacy of decision-making within international institutions increasingly is the subject of both policy and academic discourse. This essay addresses that subject with respect to international institutions involved in implementing the concept of sustainable development by way of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and which in that process engage in normative development. The question of the legitimacy of decision-making arises in this context, in particular, because developed states have ‘outsourced’ their obligation, to transfer financial means to developing states for purposes of implementing MEAs, to the World Bank and institutions associated with the Bank, such as the Global Environment Facility. This essay analyses the manner in which the legitimacy of decision-making is addressed in relevant policy and academic-legal discourse and sets out the relevant institutional and decision-making structures through which the concept of sustainable development attains normative content. It concludes that the interactional theory of international law and the principle of good self-regulation, or eunomics, offer valuable insights into what is at stake when considering the legitimacy of decision-making in the implementation of sustainable development by way of MEAs, insights that are relevant within the wider context of decision-making by international institutions.