Adoption, Adaptation or Chance? Inter-organizational Diffusion of the Protection of Civilians Norm from the United Nations to the African Union

Norms can be adopted without modifications or adapted to regional contexts for strategic or principled reasons. Norm adoption and adaptation can also happen by chance. 
When adoption takes place without consideration of the norm’s effectiveness or appropriateness, we speak about imitation. When adaptation takes place in such a manner, we lack conceptual tools to analyze it. 
“We propose a novel concept of incidental adaptation – divergence between promoted and adopted norms due to fortuitous events,” KSENIYA OKSAMYTNA and NINA WILÉN write in Third World Quarterly. “This completes the typology of scenarios leading to norm adoption and adaptation,” they write in their article titled ‘Adoption, adaptation or chance? Inter-organizational diffusion of the protection of civilians norm from the UN to the African Union.’
OKSAMYTNA and WILÉN apply the typology to the transmission of the protection of civilians norm in peace operations from the United Nations (UN) to the African Union (AU). The AU adopted the UN’s approaches in pursuit of interoperability and resources, and out of recognition of the UN’s normative authority. 
It also happened incidentally when the AU temporarily followed the UN’s approaches. The AU engaged in adaptation to reflect the nature of its operations and normative orientations of AU member states. 
Incidental adaptation accounted for the presence of the rights-based tier in the AU’s protection of civilians concept. 

“These findings nuance our understanding of norm diffusion, inter-organizational relations and the role of chance in international affairs.”

Kseniya Oksamytna & Nina Wilén (2022) Adoption, adaptation or chance? Inter-organisational diffusion of the protection of civilians norm from the UN to the African Union, Third World Quarterly, 43:10, 2357-2374, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2022.2102474

International Law and the Securitization of Peacemaking: On Chapter VII, the United Nations Security Council and the Mediation Mandate in Yemen

Peace mediation as a form of peaceful settlement of disputes has evolved significantly in the past 20 years, moving away from an informal process between parties towards a more structured undertaking rooted in norms and values of international law. 
Sitting between Chapter VI and Chapter VII of the UN Charter, mediation is an underexplored aspect of the collective security regime in international law, Catherine Turner writes in the Journal of Conflict and Security Law.
“Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the role of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and the exercise of legal authority under Chapter VII in shaping mediation mandates,” the author states in her article titled ‘International Law and the Securitization of Peacemaking: On Chapter VII, the Security Council and the Mediation Mandate in Yemen’. 
The article addresses this gap by developing a theoretical framework for understanding the role of UNSC in the construction of security in the context of peacemaking. 
Using the mandate of the Office of the Special Envoy for Yemen as a case study, the article traces the progression of the mediation mandate as set out in the UNSC resolutions, interrogating the shift in discourse from UN support for an inclusive political transition into a narrower focus on hard security and the international response to the threat of terrorism. 
Through this analysis the article demonstrates how the place of UNSC within the Charter system allows for a gradual securitization of the peace mediation process at the expense of inclusive approaches. At a time when consensus on collective security appears to be weakening, the role of the UNSC in constructing and responding to global threats is of significant interest to the future of Charter-based international peace and security.

Catherine Turner, International Law and the Securitisation of Peacemaking: On Chapter VII, the Security Council and the Mediation Mandate in Yemen, Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 2022;, krac031, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krac031

On the Right to Diplomacy: Historicizing and Theorizing Delegation and Exclusion at the United Nations

COSTAS M. CONSTANTINOU and FIONA MCCONNELL analyse the disregarded notion of the ius legationis (right of legation), revisiting historical debates in diplomatic theory and law over who possesses or ought to have this right. 
“By examining how the ius legationis manifested into a volitional or subjectional or natural right, we argue that this renders it not merely a legal issue, but a highly political and ethical question that is of direct relevance to contemporary international relations,” the authors write in ‘On the right to diplomacy: historicizing and theorizing delegation and exclusion at the United Nations’, published in the journal International Theory.
In an era where inclusivity is rhetorically promoted at the United Nations, the authors suggest that a rekindled right to diplomacy (R2D) – conceiving diplomacy as a right that is claimed but also contested – can shed light onto inequalities of representation and the role international law can play in remedying asymmetries and ethicizing the practice of diplomacy. 
Beyond its primary normative contribution, CONSTANTINOU and MCCONNELL argue that the R2D can also provide an analytical framework to understand UN’s efforts at institutionalizing diplomatic pluralism, its logics of inclusion and exclusion, as well as the struggles of diverse groups to obtain accreditation, consultative status, and negotiation ability within multilateral diplomacy.

Constantinou, C., & McConnell, F. (2022). On the right to diplomacy: Historicizing and theorizing delegation and exclusion at the United Nations. International Theory, 1-26. doi:10.1017/S1752971922000045