The Law of International and Regional Organizations

An Introduction

Historical Background

• The development of international organizations🡪 response to the evident need arising from international intercourse
• The growth of international intercourse🡪 a constant feature of maturing societies, facilitated by advances in the mechanics of transport and communications combined with the desire for trade and commerce🡪 called for international regulation by institutional means

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The consul and the ambassadors

• The Consul: to watch over the interests of the citizens engaged in commerce in a foreign port🡪 known to the Greeks and the Romans🡪 survive until now🡪 not concerned with representing his State

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• The ambassador: representing his State, dispatched for the purpose of a specific negotiation. 🡪 Developed into the institution of a permanent diplomatic ambassador in the capital of the receiving State 🡪 the practice of exchanging ambassadors with staff and embassy premises
• These all developed in the context of bilateral relationship 🡪 inadequate with more international relations grew

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International Conference

• Three or more States gathered to have a series of negotiations or discuss a draft treaty 🡪 a means of representing the interests of all the States concerned
• The means: the international conference: a gathering of representatives from several States
• Examples: The Peace of Westphalia (1648) and other post-war conference to settle problem of a more general nature involving more that two States 🡪 to be used until today to solve problems on a multilateral basis

Concert System

• The Congress of Vienna 1815 🡪 constituted a significant development: congresses held at regular intervals (the Holy Alliance). Four congresses held between 1818-1822. 🡪 Significant recognition that the “pace” of international relations demanded some institution for regular multilateral negotiations.
• “Concert of Europe” remained a quasi-institutionalized system: ad hoc system. The London Conferences of 1912-1913 being the last of the Concert of Europe

Disadvantages

• First, a new conference had to be convened for each new problem 🡪 complicated and delayed cooperation in dealing with the problem
• Second, delegations attended only to deliver statements of State policy, and the conference apply a rigidity

• Third, held by invitation of the sponsoring State 🡪 no principle of membership which conferred an automatic right to representation or participation
• Fourth, adhered to the strict rule of State equality 🡪 all States had an equal vote and all decisions required unanimity. This was the biggest power restriction of an ad hoc conference

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• The system of ad hoc conference was even more inadequate for the regulation of the relations between groups representing private concerns
• Representatives of these States did not have expertise to address technical issues in the areas of international trade, commerce, transport and communication
• Therefore, there established an impressive development of associations or unions between groups other than governments 🡪 private international unions

Private International Unions

• Non governmental bodies, whether private individuals or corporate associations, that their interests had international character needing a permanent international association
• Between 1840 and the beginning of the First World War, around 400 permanent association or unions existed.

• The characteristics:
• the possession of a permanent organ
• the association’s object must be of interest to all or some nations and not one of profit
• that membership should be open to all individuals or groups from different countries
• their more modern manifestation today are in the form of NGOs
• need for a permanent, not ad hoc, association and for periodic, regular meetings
• set up a small, permanent Secretariat

Public International Unions

• Cooperation between governments
• Originated from international organizations in the administrative sphere
• Permanent associations of governments or administrations, based upon a treaty of a multilateral rather than a bilateral type with some definite criterion of purpose
• In 1815, Congress of Vienna established the Rhine Commission with considerable powers, including standard-setting and a judicial power as a court of appeal from the local courts in each riparian State established for the purpose of implementing the Rhine Convention and its Reglements.
• The European Commission on the Danube established in 1856 had similar administrative and legislative functions. Its budget came from toll levied on river traffic.
• International Office of Public Health was established in 1907

• Characteristics:
• Trend towards permanence of association
• Permanent deliberative or legislative organs working with administrative organs
• Periodic conference working with a permanent bureau
• Departures from the unanimity rule
• Detailed implementation Reglement
• Techniques of weighted voting and of proportionate budgetary contributions
• Still persisted: coordination of activities

League of Nations

• Dedicated to the maintenance of peace after the First World War
• A proposal introduced at the Peace Conference of Paris in 1919
• The League’s objective was ‘to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security’
• The system of collective security, based on disarmament (art 8), pacific settlement of dispute and the outlawing of war ( art 11-15), a collective guarantee of the independence of its member (art 10), and sanctions (art 16 and 17)

• The League’s effort to maintain international peace and security was not so successful.
• The failure of the League was due, not to the inadequacies of the Covenant, but to the apathy and reluctance of the member States to discharge their obligations.

• The League had three principal organs:

🡪 1. The Council: the organ of limited membership, comprising originally ‘representatives of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers together with representatives of four other members…selected by the Assembly from time to time…’

🡪 2. The Assembly: was the plenary organ, meeting annually, working through six committees, and acted as a deliberative organ. It had only the power to make ‘resolutions’ or ‘recommendations’ and could not bind member States

• 3. The Secretariat was by far the most ambitious international civil service, or ‘bureau’, ever established in international organization.
• The Permanent Court of International Justice, although envisaged in the Covenant, was a separate institution and not an organ of the League

• The League experienced considerable constitutional development. The significant one was the gradual extension of the Assembly’s role at the expense of the Council. The Assembly’s technique of securing agreement via inquiry and general debate proved more effective than the narrower diplomatic negotiation favored within the Council. The also gradually took control over the budget the Council.

• From the constitutional standpoint, the League had several defects.

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• The inclusion of the Covenant within the four Peace Treaties led to certain identification of the League with the victor States
• The unanimity rule, inherited from the traditional diplomatic conference proved a severe hindrance and the Assembly’s move toward simple majority was a clear recognition of this
• Concurrent jurisdiction in the most important matter of maintaining peace and the lack of any clear separation of powers in this matter might give rise to difficulty where the Council and the Assembly differed in their approaches to the solution of a given problem affecting international peace

• The Council’s functions were too wide, to include not merely its political functions and also certain administrative functions and supervision of the economic and social activities of the League.
• Amendment of the Covenant was by a process both vague and difficult, requiring ratification by a majority of the Assembly and all members of the Council.
• Allowed the withdrawal from membership is questionable in an organization aiming at universality
• A ‘decentralized’ system of sanctions was ineffective. There had to be some delegation of authority to an executive organ and an acceptance of the principle that its decisions would bind all members

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• Other weaknesses of the League: it never acquired a universal character 🡪 the non-participation of the United States of America, it remained predominantly a European organization with a maximum 59 membership. It failed to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War.
• The failure was not necessarily due to its constitutional defects; it failed because of lack of political will, its members not being prepared to fulfill their obligations and ensure its success
• The formal demise of the Leagues came on Aril 18, 1946.

Definitional Aspects

• To qualify as an international organization it must have the following characteristics:
• Its membership must be composed of states and/or international organizations
• It must be established by Treaty
• It must have an autonomous will distinct from that of its members and be vested with legal personality, and
• It must be capable of adopting norms addressed to its members

Classification of Organizations

• Based on function:
• Political organization: the preservation of international peace and security
• Administrative organization: more specific technical aims in the economic and social fields
• Judicial and other settlement of disputes

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Based on membership:

• Global membership
• Regional membership

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Based on powers:

• Supra national powers
• Non-supra national powers

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