Examining the dynamic cascading of international norms through cluster genealogies. 1998 UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and Other Cases

Abstract

In 1998 the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were developed following years of crises faced by the millions of people experiencing forced displacement, especially those internally displaced. These Principles were widely considered to be precedent setting, both historically and normatively. However, the examination of the construction of the international norms that underpin the Principles indicates that there are important epistemological weaknesses in widely used constructivist frameworks that understand normative shifts in international relations. They are critiqued as being impedingly linear, temporally compressed and analytically obstructive in its agent-centric view of norm cascading. This research aims to address some of these gaps with an enhanced life-cycle model using cluster genealogies and the processes of replication and particularization. The reformulated framework is tested for robustness and feasibility using two preliminary cases – UNSC Resolution 1325 and the Chemical Weapons Convention. It is then used to conduct an in-depth original analysis of the development of the 1998 UN Guiding Principles. The findings in the case of the Guiding Principles show, for example, that though the acceptance of the IDP definition was a big leap, the replication and particularization of human rights limits the humanitarian scope of the Guiding Principles, and also brings into question existing humanitarian protection of IDPs under the Geneva Conventions. Meanwhile, rooting them in ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ has not shifted the community of states’ intersubjective take on sovereignty, but it has added to the existing normative tension – individual vs. state – that underpins the very understanding of sovereignty.