Transnational policy networks (TPNs) participate in global governance by formulating ideas and policy options around and through formal and informal intergovernmental organizations. They illustrate the third type of informal governance introduced in Chapter 1, informal governance that exists in the spaces around these institutions. TPNs are constituted by individuals who share a common expertise, a common technical language, and broadly shared normative concerns, but not a common institutional setting nor agreement on specific policy goals. This chapter contrasts TPNs with other institutional forms in the literature – advocacy networks, epistemic communities, transgovernmental networks, public–private partnerships, multistakeholder initiatives, and transgovernmental initiatives – and argues for their integrative advantages and ability to address individual agency and power. A heuristic case illustrates how a TPN functioned to create the Office of the Ombudsperson at the UN – securing rights protection for individuals targeted for UN sanctions – despite the initial opposition of all five Permanent Members of the Security Council. The chapter concludes with reflections on the potential benefits of applying the concept to other emergent policy domains.

If the transnational counter-terrorism order is to have any claim to legitimacy, it must enact a meaningful commitment to accountability. This chapter illustrates how such a commitment is largely absent from transnational counter-terrorism, showing that the accountability is frustrated by the institutional dominance of the Security Council and the informality of the institutional infrastructure. While the Office of the Ombudsperson and the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism undertake important accountability work, they are structurally and materially limited in their ability to hold the order to account. The chapter argues that meaningful accountability may not be possible in transnational counter-terrorism, because the order operates precisely in the way its promoters, hegemons, and institutions want it to.

Chapter 3 focuses on the problem of accountability in global governance. It follows what happens when UN sanctions powers originally designed to discipline states are used to target individuals suspected of being associated with terrorism. It provides a detailed genealogical account of the emergence of the UN1267 Office of the Ombudsperson - a procedural mechanism created by the Security Council in 2009 to provide redress to listed individuals. Most scholars argue that the Ombudsperson is an important step in the right direction towards greater human rights compliance by international organisations. This chapter challenges this narrative of global legal progress by advancing two main arguments. First, that different actors in the listing assemblage enact fundamentally different versions of the list through their practice. The ISIL and Al-Qaida list is best thought of as what STS scholars call a ‘multiple object’. Second, the Ombudsperson is an important figure of legal expertise that helps contain this multiplicity and hold the different strands of the listing assemblage together. This chapter closes by arguing that the Ombudsperson’s delisting processes and practices are primarily concerned with embedding new forms of preemptive security, aligning different actors and smoothing over conflicts of the list.