ABSTRACT
Rule-making and rule-application do not have to be separated between Council and committee. The committee governance concept provides a fruitful approach for analyzing decision-making processes, which rely on divided labor. Committee governance opens a new perspective for exploring states’ rationales behind their decisions in intergovernmental security institutions, which constrain actors from applying their material and institutional power in all instances. The Security Council can deliberately design its sanctions regimes so as to produce decisions that promise to realize in practice its political objectives within a conflict. The Security Council has a powerful governance instrument for guiding the committee stage, when it takes its role as rule-maker seriously and provides criteria, rules and procedures. If committee decision-making embedded in Council sanctions regimes can bind even the powerful permanent members to their long-term interests in rule-based governance, this has enormous implications for the Council’s sanctions policy.
