Part VIII International Institutional Law, Ch.49 Privileges and Immunities

International organizations (IOs) require a broad range of privileges and immunities in order to carry out their tasks independently from any interference by the domestic law and courts of host or other states. Recently, the growing scope of activities of IOs coupled with a heightened rights-awareness of those who might be negatively affected by broad privileges and immunities of IOs has raised questions about the legitimacy of sweeping privileges and, in particular, of often de facto absolute immunity from the jurisdiction of domestic courts. This chapter outlines the development of privileges and immunities of IOs. It focuses on how the standard of ‘functional’ immunity has been applied in practice. It also assesses future perspectives concerning the challenges to and continued justification of such a ‘preferential’ legal position.

Part VIII International Institutional Law, Ch.48 Responsibility

This chapter examines the regime of responsibility of international organizations (IOs). It considers issues such as the applicability of circumstances precluding wrongfulness to IOs; the interplay between the responsibility of IOs and that of their member states; and the problems raised by the implementation of responsibility when conduct of IOs is at stake. It concludes that responsibility of IOs will to a large extent remain an essentially theoretical concept as long as the scope of primary obligations incumbent upon IOs is not significantly clarified and remedies open to individuals victims of internationally wrongful acts committed by organizations are not established.

Part VIII International Institutional Law, Ch.45 Membership and Representation

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.

Part VIII International Institutional Law, Ch.44 Constituent Instruments

International organizations (IOs) are normally created by treaties, often referred to as the ‘constitution’ or the ‘constituent instrument’ of the organization. This chapter focuses on these treaties. It begins with an overview of the different names given to constituent instruments of IOs. It then discusses the content of constitutions and demonstrates that this varies widely. Apart from states, IOs may also become parties to constituent instruments of (other) IOs. Following these introductory matters, the chapter turns to the legal characteristics of constituent instruments and their interpretation. It focuses on the creation of a new legal person in constitutions and constitutional development through ‘practice of the organization’.

Part V The Functions of International Organizations, Ch.30 Dispute Settlement

This chapter considers two broad categories of dispute settlement: roles and procedures that seek to resolve disputes on non-legal grounds, and those involving application of legal principles and procedures. While legal writers tend to equate ‘dispute settlement’ with settlement through legal procedures, other non-legal procedures such as diplomatic negotiations, mediation, and good offices are more often used. Indeed, it is generally recognized that negotiation is the simplest and most frequently used mode of international dispute settlement. However, the line between these two categories can be far from clear, and settlement of a dispute can involve both legal and non-legal processes.

Part IV Activities of Organizations, Ch.23 Religion

This chapter focuses on the increasing importance of religion to international organizations (IOs) over the course of the last decade. The first part gives an overview of how and why religion(s) and IOs relate and interact. It discusses the definitional ambiguity of what constitutes ‘religious’ IOs and examines some proposals to clarify the issue, before mapping some important and influential religious IOs. The second part of the chapter presents the interrelationship of secular IOs with religion, emphasizing the influential role the handling of religion at the different levels of the United Nations (UN) plays in international approaches to religion in general. It then presents some other important secular IOs and their interaction with religion, before providing a brief summary of the argument and a conclusion.

Part IV Activities of Organizations, Ch.22 Labor

This chapter examines ‘labor’ as an issue which international organizations have attempted to regulate over the last century by using legal and other techniques to construct modes and structures of governance. It begins by setting out the five reasons why the terrain of labour is especially difficult for IOs to negotiate. It then considers how these reasons both structure and complicate the competing narratives of the labour issue, in the context of the roles and actions of prominent IOs as well as significant events and debates. It is argued that the long-held narrative about international labour standards as a necessary cost to be paid in order to either to constrain markets in the name of fairness, or to avoid radical social outcomes, is today inadequate. Rather, a new, alternative account is needed: that labour law can be, and is best seen, as holding positive value for both the creation of real human freedom, just societies and economic progress.

Part IV Activities of Organizations, Ch.19 Development

This chapter develops the hypothesis that the ‘golden age’ of international development organizations may be coming to a close, in part perhaps as victims of their own success. Even if they do not disappear, a recasting away from traditional poverty alleviation in poor countries to provision of global public goods (financial stability, climate change mitigation, and more controversially, security) is likely to accelerate. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the results of the immediate post-war period, in particular the Bretton Woods organizations, the UN system, and the regional development banks. Section 3 considers the parallel emergence of the foundations, the large NGOs with a global reach, and the more recent ancillaries to the established official organizations, such as the vertical funds and trust funds. Section 4 examines a constellation of international developmental actors, highlighting the transition that each sub-group within it is undergoing. Section 5 concludes that the prognosis for organizations caught in this transitional stage in global economic governance is uncertain. The challenge will be for the global community to craft what the 2013 Human Development Report calls ‘coherent pluralism’.

Part IV Activities of Organizations, Ch.14 Humanitarian Action

This chapter begins by defining some key terms, including humanitarian action, humanitarianism, humanitarian space, and humanitarian intervention. It then examines the history of humanitarian action in wars through the lenses of three historical periods: the 19th century until World War I; the early 20th century through the end of the Cold War; and the last quarter-century. Next, it describes the entities that exert influence on the ground from outside a war zone: international NGOs, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN system, bilateral aid agencies, external military forces, for-profit firms, and the media. Operating alongside, and sometimes in opposition to, external agents in a particular war zone are local actors, which include NGOs and businesses as well as the armed belligerents. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the coordination of the various moving parts of the international humanitarian system.

Part IV Activities of Organizations, Ch.9 Peace Operations

This chapter discusses the origins of peace operations; their evolution alongside the growing international conflict management structures of the United Nations (UN) and other international organizations; and their core functions, composition, and efficacy. Although peace operations have roots in earlier forms of military intervention, their emergence as a dominant tool for conflict management is a distinct innovation of the same internationalist project that forged the UN. Their evolution lays bare the fundamental tensions between state interests and the liberal internationalist project of a ‘world organization for the enforcement of peace’, and their execution has defined the way wars are fought today. The chapter focuses on UN peace operations throughout because they are the modal type of mission in the world. It also discusses the use of force within peace operations, an issue of growing importance that highlights fundamental tensions in the authorization and execution of internationally-led efforts to maintain global peace and security.