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Assumptions of Legitimacy and the Foundations of International Territorial Administration

The question I seek to examine is whether or not it should be assumed that international organizations are more legitimate than states when it comes to the specific task of territorial administration. I adopt the definition of international territorial administration, or ITA, used by Ralph Wilde in his work, which is that ITA occurs when an international organization goes into an independent territory and acts as that region's government. (1) Recent and prominent examples include the U.N.'s activities in Kosovo (UNMIK) and East Timor (UNTAET). One important distinction is that ITA operations are not peacekeeping operations, which are military affairs. Rather, ITA is civilian governance, and in the past it has been carried out in response to two types of situations: those that involve a handover in land between two countries and those in which the international organization seeks to implement a change in a territory's existing governance. Today, the use of international organizations as the actor chosen to administer a territory in a postconflict or otherwise-transitional situation has become well-established, and there continues to remain a general aversion to the idea of state administration because of associations with colonialism. I argue that this bifurcation between states and international organizations in the context of territorial administration is oversimplified and masks some very real tensions regarding the appropriateness of international organizations to carry out these activities. To address the question of whether or not international organizations are the best actors, I examine legitimacy through three separate lenses: (1) legal authority, (2) accountability, and (3) impartiality. LEGAL AUTHORITY International administration implies what was lacking under colonialism--the consent of relevant actors, including the host state and the local population. With respect to host-state consent, in those cases in which the ITA has been used to act as a "buffer" between two states during an interim land handover, host-state consent has invariably been sought. Yet in those instances in which ITA is used to effect a change in local governance, the very purpose of ITA is to go against the wishes of the host state. This was the case in Kosovo, where the United Nations sought to dispel with the existing Serb leaders. In place of host-state consent in those situations, there is instead Security Council authorization, which raises the problems that are inherent in the structure and decision-making processes of the Security Council. However, even if host-consent is present, an additional problem arises with respect to the consent of the local population. One of the main purposes of ITA has always been to facilitate self-determination entitlements for those territories seeking to define their external status. In this vein, international organizations have assisted in holding local referenda and plebiscites and have provided election monitoring. Yet on several occasions, the validity of many of these consultations has been brought into question. In West Irian, for example, a consultation took place to determine whether, following the withdrawal of the United Nations, the people wished to remain associated with Indonesia or sever their ties. The ultimate vote was for continued association, yet it was seen as corrupted and controlled by the local elites. The United Nations nevertheless endorsed the result and, to this day, there remains a strong self-determination movement in the region. Likewise in East Timor, UN administration was provided for in the May Agreement in the event of a vote for independence, yet only if the people actually read the May Agreement would they have realized this. The question was therefore never properly put before the people in a direct manner. Thus, some ITA missions have themselves suffered from the same imposed nature that came to characterize colonial administration. …