Proceduralism justifies rules, decisions, or institutions by reference to a valid process, as opposed to their being morally correct according to a substantive account of justice or goodness. Procedures such as the rule of law, democratic voting, or the voluntary consent of states are argued to confer justice or legitimacy upon their results, even if the latter are flawed. In democratic theory, procedural accounts locate the legitimacy of state laws in a deliberative process with rights of political participation. Laws, including those which are unjust in principle, are made valid by the democratic process. In the international arena proceduralists argue that international law and policies are justified by approval through an accepted legal process, ultimately based on the consent of states. On this view, states or rules which violate principles of justice, such as human rights, still can attain legitimacy.
The procedures themselves can have either a moral or instrumental...
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Rocheleau, J. (2011). Proceduralism. In: Chatterjee, D.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Justice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5_367
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