Legal Precision and Agenda-Setting in the UNGA and UNSC

• In Event: International Law: Precision, Delegation and Compliance

Abstract

How and why do bodies of law develop in international organizations (IOs)? Do the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) address issues on an ad hoc basis or "legalize" issues by establishing a precise and durable body of law? Are certain countries -- or groups of countries -- more likely to produce legalized texts? To address these questions, we begin by developing a theory of legal precision in IOs. We identify two subcomponents of precision -- consistency and precedent -- and argue that states employ legal precision at least partly to provide political cover for controversial decisions. We then describe a machine learning approach designed to measure consistency and precedent, which we apply to a novel dataset of all UN resolutions passed from 1946-2018. Specifically, we measure textual recycling, topical content, and citation networks within the corpus of resolutions. We find that the UNGA and UNSC have developed distinct bodies of law over time, though there is limited evidence of cross-chamber influence in topic areas and issues that concern both chambers. We further find that resolutions on more controversial topics -- particularly security matters -- are more precise. Our research sheds light on both the agenda-setting process in the United Nations and the development of formal norms and rules in IOs.

Authors

• Robert Shaffer, Syracuse University

• Sabrina Beth Arias, University of Pennsylvania