Expanding without much ado. International bureaucratic expansion tactics in the case of bioethics

ABSTRACT

International bureaucracies can expand their activities into new domains, even when these are remote from their formal mandates. Asking how they do this, this article reveals that expansion often goes unnoticed, because international secretariats typically start new activities in a way which is informal, mundane and depoliticized. Through an examination of UNESCO’s and WHO’s expansion into the domain of bioethics, the article argues that international bureaucratic tactics revert to a three-fold strategy mixing technicalization, expertization and naturalization. This suggests that international bureaucracies’ autonomy does not depend on their fixed characteristics, as defined by their legal-institutional mandates, capacities, or level of expertise. Expansion takes place, rather, when such resources are efficiently activated, assembled, or developed, thus shedding light on the need to examine what international bureaucracies ‘do’, rather than what they ‘are’, in order to capture their influence in global governance.

KEYWORDS:

• bioethics
• depoliticization
• expertise
• international organizations
• international bureaucracies
• mission creep

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Monique Beerli, Stephanie Hoffman, Lucile Maertens, and Matias E. Margulis who read earlier drafts of the article and shared their insightful feedback. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers, who took the time to comment constructively on my work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The article differentiates between ‘international bureaucracies’ which refer to the administration of international organizations, and ‘international organizations’, which comprise both the administration and the member states (Biermann & Siebenhüner, 2009).

2 In 1997 the UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights was adopted, followed by the 2003 International Declaration on Human Genetic Data and the 2005 Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (UNESCO, 1997; UNESCO, 2003a, 2003b; UNESCO, 2005).

3 Interview with UNESCO official, 21 August 2014.

4 Interviews with UNESCO officials, August–September 2014.

5 Interview with former IBC expert, 9 Avril 2014.

6 Interview with IBC expert, 3 September 2014. Even the interest from the French government seems to have been expressed further to a suggestion from the part of UNESCO officials.

7 Speech from Koïchiro Matsuura, Round Table of Ministers of Science, 22 October 2001, http://www.unesco.org/confgen/speeches/221001_dg.shtml.

8 The IBC was set up as an ad hoc expert group in 1993. See IBC Statutes, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/bioethics/international-bioethics-committee.

9 Interview with UNESCO official, 21 August 2014.

10 Interview with UNESCO official, 10 February 2016.

11 Interview with UNESCO official, 12 August 2014.

12 Interview with UNESCO official, 12 August 2014.

13 Interview with former IBC expert, 3 September 2014.

14 WHO website, Ethical issues in Global Health, http://www.who.int/ethics/topics/en/.

15 Interview with WHO official, 19 April 2016.

16 Interview with WHO official, 19 April 2016

17 Interview with WHO official, 4 October 2018.

18 Interview with WHO official, 29 January 2014.

19 WHO webpage, 5by5 initiative, https://www.who.int/3by5/prequal/en/.

20 Interview with WHO official, 4 October 2018.

21 Interviews with WHO officials, October 2018.

22 WHO website, Global Health Ethics Unit, https://www.who.int/ethics/about/en/.

23 WHO, The Global Summit of National Bioethics Advisory Bodies, http://www.who.int/ethics/globalsummit/en/.

24 Interview with WHO official, 30 October 2018.

25 Interview with WHO official, 29 January 2014.

26 Interview with WHO official, 9 April 2014.

27 Interview with WHO official, 29 January 2014.

28 Interview with WHO official, 29 January 2014.

29 Interview national expert for the WHO, 7 July 2014.

30 Interview with WHO official, 29 January 2014.

31 Interview with WHO official, 29 January 2014.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Annabelle Littoz-Monnet

Annabelle Littoz-Monnet is Professor in International Relations/Political Science at the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies, Geneva.