8. International Organizations

Author(s):  
Dapo Akande

This chapter examines the legal framework governing international organizations. It begins with an examination of the history, role, and nature of international organizations. It is argued that although the constituent instruments and practices of each organization differ, there are common legal principles which apply to international organizations. The chapter focuses on the identification and exploration of those common legal principles. There is an examination of the manner in which international organizations acquire legal personality in international and domestic law and the consequences of that legal personality. There is also discussion of the manner in which treaties establishing international organizations are interpreted and how this differs from ordinary treaty interpretation. The legal and decision-making competences of international organizations are considered as are the responsibility of international organizations and their privileges and immunities. Finally, the chapter examines the structure and powers of what is the leading international organization—the United Nations (UN).

Author(s):  
Higgins Dame Rosalyn, DBE, QC ◽  
Webb Philippa ◽  
Akande Dapo ◽  
Sivakumaran Sandesh ◽  
Sloan James

The United Nations (UN) was created by its founding member states when they adopted the UN Charter. Therefore, the legal authority for its existence, status, and possession of legal personality is derived from the role of states as lawmakers in the international system. This chapter discusses the meaning of legal personality and basis for its possession by the UN; status as an international organization; basis for legal personality; consequences of legal personality; position in international law; position in domestic law; what is covered by the legal personality; and the independent competence of subsidiary organs to rely on the UN’s legal personality in international law and such personality granted in municipal law.


2019 ◽  
pp. 131-160
Author(s):  
Gleider Hernández

This chapter looks at international organizations, their differences to States, and their position within the international legal order. Today, international organizations exist in virtually all fields of transnational and global collective concern. In the broadest sense, they facilitate international cooperation in all areas from the harmonization of tariffs to the management of delicate ecosystems, and range in their scope from small bilateral commissions regulating transboundary resources to regional security and economic organizations, all the way to the universalist aspirations of the UN. The chapter then considers the question of establishing the legal personality of international organizations under international law, which must be distinguished from the question of whether an international organization may also hold legal personality under the domestic law of a State.


Author(s):  
Mathias Stephen ◽  
Trengove Stadler

This chapter explains the membership practices in international organizations (IOs). It focuses on criteria for membership, rights and obligations of membership, suspension, expulsion, and withdrawal. In addition to setting out the legal criteria in an international organization's constitutive treaty relating to membership, it also discusses how these criteria have been applied in practice and how decisions that are political in nature have been made within the established institutional and legal framework. The chapter focuses on three different types of IOs: the universal, represented by the United Nations (UN); the regional, such as the European Union (EU) and African Union (AU), where membership is restricted to countries from a particular geographic area; and the specialized agencies which, while fulfilling a limited and technical function, are often open to universal membership.


Author(s):  
Higgins Dame Rosalyn, DBE, QC ◽  
Webb Philippa ◽  
Akande Dapo ◽  
Sivakumaran Sandesh ◽  
Sloan James

United Nations (UN) specialized agencies are autonomous organizations working as part of the UN system in economic, social, cultural, educational, health, and related fields. There are 17 UN specialized agencies. Four of these—the International Labour Organization (ILO), United Postal Union (UPU), International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO)—were in existence as international organizations before the establishment of the UN. The other agencies were established either concurrently with or subsequent to the establishment of the UN. This chapter discusses the development of specialized agencies; other agencies or organizations; membership; legal personality; relationship agreements; relationship with principal organs; overview of mandates; and bodies established by specialized agencies.


1967 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 592-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Karan Jacobson

Whether it is called an assembly, a conference, or something else, there is in most if not all international organizations an organ, for which the United Nations General Assembly is the prototype, in which the entire membership is represented. The importance of these bodies is generally acknowledged. Constitutionally, they usually have final authority in such matters as the appointment of the executive officer, the election of smaller organs, the adoption of the budget, and the determination of overall policy. Few studies of an international organization or of the interaction between a state or a group of states and an international organization can neglect the assembly of the organization under scrutiny.


Author(s):  
Анатолий Капустин ◽  
Anatoliy Kapustin

A few very important features of financial law of international organizations were consider in present article. The author puts forward an idea that funding of international organizations activities is an important element of the international legal personality of international organizations, because it allows them to ensure the necessary independence while executing their international rights and obligations and the exercise of their assigned functions. The main categories of financial law of international organizations were examined in article: the concept and types of incomes and expenses, the concept of budget process of the international organization in accordance with two ways of funding of international organizations settled in the XX century. Special attention was paid to the analysis of the obligations of Member States of an international organization to contribute to the organization’s budget. For these purposes, the analysis of the positions of judges of the International Court of Justice and the opinions of scientists on this issue in the context of the proceedings on certain expenses of the United Nations. The author has come to conclusion about necessity of the further study of the problems of the financial law of international organizations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Davies

Abstract This article will shed light on an under-researched aspect of the implementation of gender policies in the UN Secretariat—the administrative and budgetary committees that establish the staff regulations for civilian personnel. The article will explore how the politics of UN recruitment invokes two primary identities—nationality and gender—and how these conflict with each other. Using demographic analysis of UN civilian staff in peace operations and a micro-case study of an ongoing attempt by the Secretary-General to change the staff rules and regulations to introduce a form of affirmative action to reach gender parity, this article finds that efforts to achieve the representative provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, including through gender parity of civilians in peace operations, are hampered by the primacy of national identity in international organizations as well as by the highly politicized and nation state-driven process of administrative and budgetary decision-making. By focusing on the inner dynamics of decision-making in the United Nations, the article contributes to the literature on international organizations and gender by demonstrating how normative goals can be undermined by competition among member states over internal administrative processes arising from complex principal–agent relationships.


Author(s):  
Higgins Dame Rosalyn, DBE, QC ◽  
Webb Philippa ◽  
Akande Dapo ◽  
Sivakumaran Sandesh ◽  
Sloan James

This chapter examines the powers or competences of the United Nations as a separate legal entity. Its possession of legal personality, its specialized agencies, and some of the separate legal entities in the UN family are concepts that are related but distinct from the powers of these bodies. The possession of international legal personality means that these bodies have their own rights and duties, and powers vested in them in their own right. However, the possession of legal personality does not define the particular powers of the organization, nor does it mean that they have plenary competence under international law or in municipal legal systems. The chapter discusses the relationship to legal personality; nature and scope; purposes and principles of the organization; division of competence between principal organs and subsidiary organs; domestic jurisdiction limitation of Article 2(7); substantive content of powers internationally and in domestic law; consequences of ultra vires acts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-235
Author(s):  
Magnus Lundgren

Studies of conflict management by international organizations have demonstrated correlations between institutional characteristics and outcomes, but questions remain as to whether these correlations have causal properties. To examine how institutional characteristics condition the nature of international organization interventions, I examine mediation and ceasefire monitoring by the Arab League and the United Nations during the first phase of the Syrian civil war (2011–2012). Using micro-evidence sourced from unique interview material, day-to-day fatality statistics, and international organization documentation, I detail causal pathways from organizational characteristics, via intervention strategies, to intervention outcomes. I find that both international organizations relied on comparable intervention strategies. While mediating, they counseled on the costs of conflict, provided coordination points, and managed the bargaining context so as to sideline spoilers and generate leverage. While monitoring, they verified violent events, engaged in reassurance patrols, and brokered local truces. The execution of these strategies was conditioned on organizational capabilities and member state preferences in ways that help explain both variation in short-term conflict abatement and the long-term failure of both international organizations. In contrast to the Arab League, the United Nations intervention, supported by more expansive resources and expertise, temporarily shifted conflict parties away from a violent equilibrium. Both organizations ultimately failed as disunity among international organization member state principals cut interventions short and reduced the credibility of international organization mediators.


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