Democratic accountability of international organizations: Parliamentary control within the Council of Europe and the OSCE and the prospects for the United Nations

The State represents a central concept and a basic subject of international law. In order to function and engage in treaties and relations with other states in a growing globalized world, the State must be accepted and treated as independent by other states. But independence alone is not enough. Declaring independence is typically a unilateral act undertaken by one entity. Hence, there are states in the world today that are independent; however, their international subjectivity is not recognized. This makes their position and ability to engage in the international sphere more complex. As a result, authorities look into ways of bypassing formal recognition. Joining international organizations becomes one alternative. This article explores the quest of Kosovo to join international organizations as a way to secure recognition and statehood. It begins with the United Nations, and briefly analyses the diplomatic efforts of Kosovar governments to accede. The focus of this article however, will be more specifically on Kosovo’s application to join UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization, the Council of Europe and international sports federations, for this process will shed light on several important legal and political aspects of recognition: the application procedure, the political interests of states, the lobbying and securing of states’ support in an entity’s bid to obtain a seat at the organization. Membership in UNESCO is rightfully seen as a gateway to reach to a seat at the United Nations, while bypassing unilateral recognitions granted by states individually. While membership in international organizations will not imply recognition of international subjectivity for a new entity, in practical terms, it offers to achieve what recognition promises. Kosovo has been able to sit at the same table with its regional counterparts and has been able to participate and share in various regional initiatives. As an initial phase of normalization of relations with Serbia, this represents a solid step forward. At a later stage, it could serve as an incentive, or even better as a catalyst to speed up securing full-fledged statehood.

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Delegating diplomacy: rhetoric across agents in the United Nations General Assembly

International Review of Administrative Sciences ◽

10.1177/0020852321997560 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002085232199756

Author(s):

Julia Gray ◽

Alex Baturo

Keyword(s):

United Nations ◽

International Organizations ◽

General Assembly ◽

Government Officials ◽

United Nations General ◽

Different Types ◽

Single Voice ◽

United Nations General Assembly ◽

The United Nations ◽

Career Incentives

When political principals send agents to international organizations, those agents are often assumed to speak in a single voice. Yet, various types of country representatives appear on the international stage, including permanent representatives as well as more overtly “political” government officials. We argue that permanent delegates at the United Nations face career incentives that align them with the bureaucracy, setting them apart from political delegates. To that end, they tend to speak more homogeneously than do other types of speakers, while also using relatively more technical, diplomatic rhetoric. In addition, career incentives will make them more reluctant to criticize the United Nations. In other words, permanent representatives speak more like bureaucratic agents than like political principals. We apply text analytics to study differences across agents’ rhetoric at the United Nations General Assembly. We demonstrate marked distinctions between the speech of different types of agents, contradictory to conventional assumptions, with implications for our understandings of the interplay between public administration and agency at international organizations. Points for practitioners Delegations to international organizations do not “speak with one voice.” This article illustrates that permanent representatives to the United Nations display more characteristics of bureaucratic culture than do other delegates from the same country. For practitioners, it is important to realize that the manner in which certain classes of international actors “conduct business” can differ markedly. These differences in tone—even among delegates from the same principal—can impact the process of negotiation and debate.

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Mandate or Donors? Explaining the UNHCR’s Country-Level Expenditures from 1967 to 2016

Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0032321720974330 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 003232172097433

Author(s):

Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir ◽

Ronny Patz ◽

Klaus H Goetz

Keyword(s):

United Nations ◽

International Organizations ◽

Voluntary Contributions ◽

United Nations High Commissioner ◽

Country Level ◽

High Commissioner ◽

Donor Influence ◽

The United Nations ◽

Major Donors ◽

Expenditure Allocation

In recent decades, many international organizations have become almost entirely funded by voluntary contributions. Much existing literature suggests that major donors use their funding to refocus international organizations’ attention away from their core mandate and toward serving donors’ geostrategic interests. We investigate this claim in the context of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), examining whether donor influence negatively impacts mandate delivery and leads the organization to direct expenditures more toward recipient countries that are politically, economically, or geographically salient to major donors. Analyzing a new dataset of UNHCR finances (1967–2016), we find that UNHCR served its global mandate with considerable consistency. Applying flexible measures of collective donor influence, so-called “influence-weighted interest scores,” our findings suggest that donor influence matters for the expenditure allocation of the agency, but that mandate-undermining effects of such influence are limited and most pronounced during salient refugee situations within Europe.

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UNICEF in Central America

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science ◽

10.1177/000271626032900108 ◽

1960 ◽

Vol 329 (1) ◽

pp. 69-77

Author(s):

Alice C. Shaffer

Keyword(s):

United Nations ◽

Central America ◽

International Organizations ◽

Central American ◽

The World ◽

Working Together ◽

Integrated Programs ◽

Regional Basis ◽

The United Nations

Central America has been one of the pioneer areas for the United Nations Children's Fund assisted pro grams. When the United Nations Children's Fund, under a broadened mandate from the United Nations, shifted the emphasis of its aid from emergency to long term and from war-torn countries to those economically less developed, Cen tral American governments immediately requested its assist ance to strengthen and extend services to children and mothers. As one of the first areas in the world to aim at the eradication of malaria and to have engaged in an inten sive campaign against malnutrition on a regional basis, the Central American experiences in these fields have become known, watched, and studied by people from many countries. Against this background, international and bilateral organi zations are working together with governments as they broaden the scope and the extent of their programs. Ten years of co-operative action have highlighted the need for train ing of personnel, both professional and auxiliary. This period has also made clear the value of more integrated programs with wider collaboration both within the ministries of government and between the international organizations.

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International Labor Organization

International Organization ◽

10.1017/s0020818300019792 ◽

1948 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 359-360 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Keyword(s):

United Nations ◽

International Organizations ◽

Background Information ◽

Labor Organization ◽

International Labor Organization ◽

American States ◽

International Labor ◽

Social Council ◽

The United Nations ◽

June July

Report to the Economic and Social Council: The International Labor Organization submitted to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations on, September 29, 1947 a report on its activities during the year 1947. This report, the first of a regular series which ILO had agreed to submit regularly (Article V paragraph 2(a) of the Agreement between the United Nations and the ILO), included background information and covered the period from the establishment of the United Nations to July 15, 1947. This report dealt with the decisions of five successive sessions of the International Labor Conference, i.e., those held in Philadelphia, May 1947, in Paris, October–November 1945, in Seattle, June 1946, in Montreal, September–October 1946, and in Geneva, June–July 1947. Future reports, it was announced, would cover only one year's work. The report was accompanied by a volume containing a series of appendices which included the text of the Constitution of ILO as amended by the 1946 Instrument of Amendment, the text of the Agreement between the United Nations and ILO, a list of the committees of ILO, a list of meetings convened by ILO as well as meetings of other international organizations at which ILO was represented during the period covered by the report, a list of and the texts of Conventions, Recommendations, and some of the Resolutions adopted by the International Labor Conference, resolutions adopted by the third Conference of American States Members of ILO, held in 1946, and the text of the agreement between ILO and FAO.

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The United Nations Conference on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations

Netherlands International Law Review ◽

10.1017/s0165070x00011463 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 33 (02) ◽

pp. 195 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

G. Limburg

Keyword(s):

United Nations ◽

International Organizations ◽

The United Nations ◽

The Law

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Theorizing or Negotiating the Law?: A Response to Devika Hovell

AJIL Unbound ◽

10.1017/s2398772300002300 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 110 ◽

pp. 3-7 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Antonios Tzanakopoulos

Keyword(s):

United Nations ◽

International Organizations ◽

Public Interest ◽

Due Process ◽

Regional Level ◽

Cholera Outbreak ◽

A Value ◽

Un Security Council ◽

State Practice ◽

The United Nations

Devika Hovell’s article is a very welcome and useful contribution to the debate regarding the “accountability” (whatever the term may mean) of international organizations, and the United Nations in particular. The author argues that scholarship has tended to focus on (descriptive) state practice to the detriment of (normative) theoretical appeal, and so the relevant discussion “has received inadequate theoretical attention.” In response, she sets out to tell the story of the United Nations being held to account through a highly theorized (and, if I may venture even at the outset, perhaps a bit stylized) scheme of contrasting “instrumentalist,” “dignitarian,” and “public interest” approaches to due process. This she applies to two case studies, one regarding targeted sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, mainly in the context of antiterrorism; and one regarding the cholera outbreak in Haiti, where the United Nations has been implicated. Hovell critiques both the instrumentalist and dignitarian approaches, which correspond in broad terms to legal action at the international, and the domestic/regional level, respectively, and argues in favor of a “public interest” approach as better reflecting a “value-based” due process.

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