Abstract
When the legitimacy of a government is contested, courts, regional bodies, and states each decide independently who speaks for the state in law. In Recognition Rules, Justin Cole, Alaa Hachem, and Oona Hathaway argue that this fragmentation imposes real costs and propose to cure them by empowering the U.N. Credentials Committee to issue binding determinations of governmental authority across all international law contexts. This Article argues that, beyond Charter obstacles to such a reform, it would be a mistake. The effective-control criterion rewards actors who seize power by force over governments that retain democratic legitimacy; binding credentials decisions would strip international courts and regional bodies of the contextual judgment that standing, immunities, and treaty capacity actually require; and the fragmentation the proposal seeks to eliminate is not a failure of design but a reflection of the fact that legitimacy cannot be reduced to a single criterion decided by a political body. Preserving multiple sites of recognition authority is not a concession to disorder; it is the only approach adequate to the problem.
Recommended Citation
Jorge Barrera-Rojas, Recognition Without Authority? Why Vesting Government Recognition in the U.N. Credentials Committee Would Be a Mistake, 83 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 288 (2026), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr-online/vol83/iss5/1
Included in
Courts Commons, International Law Commons, Jurisdiction Commons