ABSTRACT
International standards in the fields of health, safety and environmental regulation are often produced by standard setting bodies, cooperating and/or relying on the work of scientific and quasi-scientific bodies. These bodies are henceforth referred to as Global Regulatory Scientific Institutions (GRSIs). In spite of their exercise of regulatory authority, GRSIs remain often back-grounded in the study of global technocracy and go unnoticed by broader publics. The chapter offers a first conceptualization of the dimensions that ought to be considered when studying and designing accountability frameworks for regulatory scientific institutions and, more generally, of global technocracy. It presents a bird's eye on the literature on accountability in global law, that is, the main body of legal scholarship interested in the question of accountability of global institutions. The chapter further suggests that accountability is best understood through the prism of public law. It identifies and discusses dimensions along which the accountability of GRSIs can be conceptualized and further operationalized.
