Research on the monitoring practices of international organizations focuses largely on how international organizations monitor states that have ratified the underlying agreements. Yet some international organizations also monitor the behaviour of states that have not ratified the underlying agreements. We propose an explanation for such practices. We posit that international organizations engage in non-ratifier monitoring when the preferences of powerful states are aligned with those of the organization, but that state preferences are only comprehensible against the backdrop of the weakening of the state consent norm. We probe our theoretical argument with three brief case studies on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the United Nations (UN) human rights conventions, and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. We show that in each case both ratifiers and non-ratifiers had an interest in non-ratifier monitoring and how the weakening of the state consent norm affected states’ attitudes towards this type of monitoring through international organizations. We also suggest that the extent of contestation of non-ratifier monitoring though international organizations is influenced by the degree of alignment of powerful states’ preferences and that monitoring beyond state consent has real implications for international cooperation.

Participating Researchers:

Monika Heupel

Barbara Koremenos