Ábyrgð alþjóðastofnana. Eftirlit með meðferð opinbers valds

In an increasingly more compact world the role of international organizations (IOs) and other international actors is growing. A change in governance has followed the globalization of recent years and public power that has traditionally been exercised by states is now increasingly falling under the domain of international institutions. This can result in individuals being adversely affected by decisions of those international actors without the checks and balances that have often been put in place where states exercise public powers. The focus of this thesis is on a particular issue that results from this, the accountability of international institutions. In order to comprehensively address this issue there is need to explain what is meant by globalization and governance beyond the state and highlight instances where international actors do affect individuals. For this purpose a few illustrative examples are discussed. The principle that all entities exercising public authority must account for the exercise thereof plays a central role in the thesis. A framework for assessing the accountability of international institutions is provided by the ILA Committee on Accountability of IOs where the concept’s multifaceted aspects are emphasized. The body of principles and rules applicable to international organizations are also discussed in some detail, especially those putting limits on ways to hold such organizations accountable. The idea of a limited government is at the core of the thesis and how this idea has been and can be conceptualized at the international level. Insights are sought from different approaches that focus on the legitimacy of globalized governance, namely global constitutionalism and global administrative law. These approaches serve to establish the need for possibilities to hold international institutions exercising public power accountable. In many national administrative law systems ombudsman procedures have been introduced to secure accountability of the administration. These procedures do have a potential for constraining the general exercise of public power and IOs should be willing to adopt them especially taking the non-binding nature of their decision making power into account. It is concluded that establishing ombudsman procedures for international institutions could be a step towards greatly enhancing their accountability