Chapter 1: Implementation of International Instruments: How Do Public Employees Navigate Multiple Loyalties?

Public employees must respect, and sometimes implement, an increasing number of rules and legal frameworks that may exist at several levels (international, national, and subnational). They may face a dilemma between following the objectives of such rules or those of their hierarchy. In this sense, existing research has shown that the implementation of international instruments is carried out by specialized public employees, who sometimes face multiple loyalties. Against this background, this chapter explores how public employees navigate these loyalties (to their organization and to the implementation of legal instruments, which is part of their mission). To explore this issue, this chapter uses the implementation of two international instruments by public employees in Switzerland: the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence and the European Union (EU) Directive 2016/680 on data protection. It is based on a document analysis and semi-structured interviews with implementing actors. Drawing on these data, the author observe the loyalties of specialized public employees who oversee the implementation of these instruments, respectively domestic violence delegates and data protection commissioners. The author propose a model that categorizes public employees’ roles and motivations to make sense of their loyalties. The author findings show that in both case studies, public employees’ roles and motivations are aligned with the international instruments’ objectives. This chapter shows that specialized public employees are highly motivated to carry out their mission and are therefore often more loyal to international instruments than to their hierarchy. The chapter concludes with a set of policy recommendations.