Ronald Niezen holds the Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy in the Faculty of Law and the Department of Anthropology at McGill University, Montréal. His work on public justice outreach includes the study of truth and reconciliation commissions, online lobbying, and human rights movements. These areas of study have involved research in a variety of forums, including the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the World Health Organization, and the Arctic Council. His books include The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Difference (2003), Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law (Cambridge, 2010), and Truth and Indignation: Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools (2013). Maria Sapignoli is a Research Fellow in the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. She has done research on legal activism, indigenous rights, and social movements. These areas of study have involved work in a variety of global organizations, including the United Nations Secretariat Headquarters, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the International Labour Organization's Training Centre. Some of her research involves San activism in southern Africa on issues related to indigenous peoples' rights and claims to land and resources in the context of resettlement. She is the author of several articles and book chapters on indigenous peoples in southern Africa, most recently in Anthropological Forum (2015) and the Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Peoples' Rights (2016).

• 1. Introduction Ronald Niezen and Maria Sapignoli; 2. Heart of darkness: an exploration of the WTO Marc Abélès; 3. Horseshoe and catwalk: power, complexity and consensus-making in the United Nations Security Council Niels Nagelhus Schia; 4. A kaleidoscopic institutional form: expertise and transformation in the permanent forum on indigenous issues Maria Sapignoli; 5. The 'public' character of the Universal Periodic Review: contested concept and methodological challenge Jane K. Cowan and Julie Billaud; 6. Meeting 'the world' at the Palais Wilson: embodied universalism at the UN Human Rights Committee Miia Halme-Tuomisaari; 7. Expertise and quantification in global institutions Sally Engle Merry; 8. From boardrooms to field programs: humanitarianism and international development in Southern Africa Robert K. Hitchcock; 9. Global village courts: international organizations and the bureaucratization of rural justice systems in the Global South Tobias Berger; 10. Contrasting values of forests and ice in the making of a global climate agreement Noor Johnson and David Rojas; 11. The best of the best: positing, measuring and sensing value in the UNESCO World Heritage Arena Christoph Brumann; 12. Propaganda on trial: structural fragility and the epistemology of international legal institutions Richard Ashby Wilson; 13. The anthropology by organizations: legal knowledge and the UN's ethnological imagination Ronald Niezen; Index.