TY - JOUR

T1 - Virtual Voting in RFMOs

T2 - A Procedural Odyssey at the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission

AU - Schatz, Valentin

AU - Perraudeau, Maia

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Valentin Schatz and Maia Perraudeau, 2023.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - This article examines, from the perspective of international institutional law, the variety of procedural problems which arose following an online vote by secret ballot taken by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (iotc) in 2021. By providing a detailed case-study of this novel instance of practice and the challenges it represents, this article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the institutional governance and procedural legal framework of regional fisheries management organizations (rfmo s). It first analyses the vote and the challenge to its validity. This article then constructs a taxonomy of the various procedural irregularities that were found to have occurred, the responsibility of institutional actors for their occurrence, and their legal consequences. The final substantive sections of this article examine how the iotc ultimately dealt with the situation and what potential role the available dispute settlement procedures could have had in addressing the discussed procedural irregularities.

AB - This article examines, from the perspective of international institutional law, the variety of procedural problems which arose following an online vote by secret ballot taken by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (iotc) in 2021. By providing a detailed case-study of this novel instance of practice and the challenges it represents, this article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the institutional governance and procedural legal framework of regional fisheries management organizations (rfmo s). It first analyses the vote and the challenge to its validity. This article then constructs a taxonomy of the various procedural irregularities that were found to have occurred, the responsibility of institutional actors for their occurrence, and their legal consequences. The final substantive sections of this article examine how the iotc ultimately dealt with the situation and what potential role the available dispute settlement procedures could have had in addressing the discussed procedural irregularities.

KW - decision-making

KW - Indian Ocean Tuna Commission

KW - online voting

KW - Regional Fisheries Management Organizations

KW - virtual meetings

KW - Sociology

KW - Law

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85183006739&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://brill.com/view/journals/iolr/20/3/article-p305_003.xml

UR - https://brill.com/view/journals/iolr/20/3/article-p305_003.xml?ebody=article%20details

UR - https://brill.com/view/journals/iolr/20/3/iolr.20.issue-3.xml

U2 - 10.1163/15723747-20030003

DO - 10.1163/15723747-20030003

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85183006739

VL - 20

SP - 305

EP - 329

JO - International Organizations Law Review

JF - International Organizations Law Review

SN - 1572-3739

IS - 3

ER -