Informal Rulemaking at the World Health Organization: Technocratic, Iterative, and Political Constraints

Amidst the multiple governance crises faced by the World Health Organization (who), the agency is hesitant to use its lawmaking authority to promote global health. Instead, the organization relies on its scientific expertise and opts for a managerial approach. This article explores the use of ‘informal rulemaking’ by the who to coordinate international policies for addressing global health challenges. Informal rulemaking involves establishing rules based on scientific knowledge through informal actors, processes, and outputs. By embracing informality, the who aims to reconcile conflicting ideals of democratic governance and governance by experts. Informal rulemaking enables the organization to turn to various sources of legitimacy—outside its Constitution—to drive changes. This article examines the characteristics of informal rulemaking in light of the political economy of global health and explores its governance implications through a case study on human genome editing, identifying the strengths and limitations of informal rulemaking.