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The Concept of international organizations

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The Concept of international organizations

Introduction

Many forces generate clashes between countries, including economic rivalry and
disputes over trade, the desire to dominate strategic land or sea areas, religious or
ideological conflict, and imperialistic ambition. All national governments develop
organizations and policies to meet these and other situations. They have foreign
ministries for the conduct of diplomatic relations with other countries, for representing
them in international organizations, and for negotiating treaties. Some governments
conduct programs such as foreign aid, cultural exchange, and other activities designed to
win goodwill abroad .

The development of international organizations has been, in the main, a response to the
evident need arising from international intercourse rather than to the philosophical or
ideological appeal of the notion of world government. The growth of international
intercourse, in the sense of the development of relations between different peoples, was
a constant feature of maturing civilizations; advances in the mechanics of
communications combined with the desire for trade to produce a degree of intercourse
which ultimately called for regulation by institutional means . It will quickly become
apparent that the meaning of international organisations is in the eye of the beholder,
for scholars of different persuasions and disciplines have contending and even
irreconcilable views of whether international organisations matter in international
politics, and of the conditions under which they might .

This lecture introduces definitions, functions and concept of International


Organisation. Distinguishing the concept, facts, benefit and limitations, type of roles
they play, the formations, limitations and finally the list of International Organisation.

Definitions of International Organization

An international organization has been defined “as a forum of co-operation of sovereign


states based on multilateral international organizations and comprising of a relatively
stable range of participants, the fundamental feature of which is the existence of
permanent organs with definite competences and powers acting for the carrying out of
common aims. In the widest sense, international organization can be defined as “a
process of organizing the growing complexity of international relations; international
organizations are the institutions which represent the phase of that process. They are
the expressions of and contributors to the process of international organization, as well
as, the significant factors in contemporary world affairs .”

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Apart from the above, international organization is the process by which states establish
and develop formal, continuing institutional structures for the conduct of certain aspects
of their relationships with each other. It represents a reaction to the extreme
decentralization of the traditional system of international relations and an effort by
statesmen to adapt the mechanics of that system to the requirements posed by the
constantly increasing complexity of the interdependence of states. International
organizations may be regarded as manifestations of the organizing process on the
international level .

Also, international organization is an organization with an international membership,


scope, or presence. International Organisation is a specialisation within the Political
Science master programme. It covers various aspects of global governance from multiple
social and political science perspectives. An international organization is “a body that
promotes voluntary cooperation and coordination between or among its members.”
International Organizations, while often a vessel of state actions, have also themselves
become actors. International organizations are organizations, comprised of states, to
pursue some sort of common purpose or objective. Often, these organizations set the
rules for behavior and activity among state and non-state actors in the international
system.

The Historical Development of International Organizations

Although embryonic forms of international organizations have been present throughout


recorded history, for instance, in the form of the so called amphictyonic councils of
ancient Greece, the late-medieval Hanseatic Leagueor such precursors as the Swiss
Confederation and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, it was not until the
nineteenth century that international organizations as we know them today were first
established. Moreover, it was not until the nineteenth century that the international
system of states (at least within Europe) had become sufficiently stable to allow those
states to seek forms of cooperation .

Situations soon arose in which the essentially bilateral relationships established by


diplomatic embassies or missions were inadequate. For example, a problem would arise
which concerned not two but many States, and whether what was proposed was a series
of negotiations or even a formal treaty, there had to be found a means for representing
the interests of all the states concerned. The means was the international conference, a
gathering of representatives from several states; simply diplomacy writ large. The peace
of Westphalia in 1648 emanated from such a conference, as did the settlement after the
Napoleonic wars in 1815 through the congress of Vienna and, even later, the post-1918
settlement negotiated at the Paris conference of 1919 and embodied in the Treaty of
Versailles. After the watershed, Westphalian peace of 1648, international so-called
congresses had become a regular mode of diplomacy: whenever a problem arose, a
conference was convened to discuss it and, if possible at all takes steps towards a
solution. After the defeat of Napoleon, a new development took place .

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The Congress of Vienna of 1815 had seen the initiation of the “concert system” which, for
the purposes of any study of international organization, constituted a significant
development. As sponsored by the Czar Alexander I, what was envisaged was an alliance
of the victorious powers pledged to conduct diplomacy per ethical standards, which
would convene at congresses held at regular intervals.In fact, four congresses were held
between 1818 and 1822 - at Aix-la-Chappelle (1818), at Troppau and Laibach (1820,
1821), and at Verona (1822) - but the idea of regular congresses was later abandoned
and meetings took place as occasion required. The attempt to secure regular meetings
was, however, a significant recognition that the “Pace” of international relations
demanded some institutions for regular multilateral negotiations .

Moreover, the Congress of Vienna (1815) and its aftermath launched some other
novelties as well, the most remarkable of which was perhaps the creation of a
supranational military force under the command of Wellington. Clearly, any general post
war settlement demanded a more general participation in the negations than could
easily be achieved via the traditional methods of diplomatic intercourse. Bilateral
negation also proved inadequate for other problems of a general nature. The congress of
Berlin of 1871 was convened to consider the Russian repudiation of the regime for the
Black Sea which had earlier been established at the Paris Conference of 1856;
conferences met in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 to attempt to regulate the “Scramble for
Africa” which led to commercial rivalry and political antagonism between the European
powers. The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 were an effort to secure, on a
multilateral basis, agreement on different aspects of the law relating to the conduct of
warfare on land and on the sea, and on the duties of neutral states .

The peace conferences of The Hague had given the small sates a taste for international
activism: in particular, the 1970 conference approached universal participation, with
forty-four states being represented. Moreover, due in part to its near-universal
participation, organizational experiments took place, one of them being that
recommendations (so-called ‘voeux’) of the conference were passed by a majority vote,
instead of unanimity . The “concert of Europe” remained a quasi- institutionalized system
even after the Holy Alliance had broken up, until the First World War destroyed the
balance of power on which it rested (or rather confirmed its demise); the London
conferences of 1912-13, at the end of the Balkan Wars, were the last conferences or
congresses convened within the framework of the “concert system.” The conclusion of a
conference would normally be accompanied by a formal treaty or convention, or, where
no such binding agreement was desired or obtainable, by a memorandum or minutes of
the conference .

Intergovernmental Organizations : An intergovernmental organization (IGO) is


composed of nation-states and it promotes voluntary co-operation and coordination
among its members. Decisions and agreements reached in this type of organization
however are not enforceable, and the members remain independent. The crucial aspect
of an IGO is that the members do not surrender any power (or sovereignty) to it. The
United Nations is an intergovernmental organization .
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Furthermore,” international organizations are an institution that come and go in
accordance with the significance of the dynamism of international relations and as the
process it exists as an established trend. International organisation, it was the stimulus of
the existing process ready at hand that automatically led, after the collapse of the
League of Nations, to the creation of new organizations like the U.N. Thus, international
organization is the process by which states establish and develop format and continuing
institutional structures for the conduct of certain aspects of their relationships with each
other. It represents a reaction to the extreme decentralization of the traditional system
of international relations and the constantly increasing complexities of the
interdependence of states’’.

The following are the essentials of international organization, the institution:

1. Its origin is based on multilateral international agreement.


2. The institution has a personality of its own, which is distinct from that of its
individual members.

It has permanent organs which carry out common aims.

As compared to the will of all members, its organs exhibit autonomy of will. The fact that
they do not always hold true does not, as such, deny their value in general .

One of those characteristics is that international organizations are usually created


between states,or rather, as states themselves are abstractions, by duly authorized
representatives of states. For one thing, there are international organizations which are
themselves members of another international organization and sometimes even
founding members. The EC, thus, is a member of the FAO, and a founding member of
the WTO. Still, we do not exclude the WTO and the FAO from the scope of international
organizations simply because they count another organization among their members.
Generally, international organizations can only be created by states .

Not all such organizations created by states are generally considered international
organizations. States may, for example establish a legal person under some domestic
legal system. Perhaps an example is the Basle-Milhouse Air-port authority, a joint
venture, between France and Switzerland and governed French law. Moreover,
sometimes treaties are to be implemented with the help of one or more organs. For
instance, the European Court of Human Rights is entrusted with supervising the
implementation of the European Convention on Human rights. Yet, the Court is not
considered to be an international organization in its own right; it is, instead, often
referred to as a treaty organ.

The Conceptual of International Organizations


International Organizations (IOs) have become a central part of international relations.
As Hurd (2014) writes: “As interdependence increases, the importance of international
organizations increases with it. We find international organizations in one form or
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another at the heart of all of the political and economic challenges of the twenty-first
century”. As Ian Hurd (2014) explains, international organizations “…are constituted by
international law as independent entities, separate from states that make them up as
their founders and their members. The practical expression of this independence varies
greatly across organizations, but in a formal sense they are corporate “persons” much
like firms are “persons” in domestic commercial law. This means that they have legal
standing, with certain rights and obligations, and can sue and be sued”.

On the one hand, they are their own entity, and are often treated as such, and they are
often made up of states, of which the leaders of those said states have their own
domestic and international political interests. In fact, Hurd says as much, saying that “The
dilemma of international organization as a practice in world politics is of course that
these actors are composed of units which are themselves independent actors, and so
formal international organizations are always collective rather than unitary actors. When
they operate as “agents” they are unitary actors in the same way that national
governments, also composed of many individuals and factions, are recognized as unitary
actors in world politics .”

IGOs range in size from three members to more than 185 (e.g., the United Nations [UN]),
and their geographic representation varies from one world region (e.g., the Organization
of American States) to all regions (e.g., the International Monetary Fund). Whereas some
IGOs are designed to achieve a single purpose (e.g., the World Intellectual Property
Organization), others have been developed for multiple tasks (e.g., the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization). Their organizational structures can be simple or highly complex
depending on their size and tasks. The role that international organizations can play
depends on the interests of their member States. States establish and develop
international organizations to achieve objectives that they cannot achieve on their own.
By the same token, States will not permit international organizations to do things that
constitute, in the eyes of these States, interference in their internal affairs .

An IGO is an organization composed primarily of sovereign states (member states), or of


other intergovernmental organizations. General international organization in the
twentieth century is a reaction to the grim reality of violent conflict among states and a
response to the danger of future conflict. Moreover, the functional theory of
international organization, which explicitly stresses the development of agencies
devoted to cooperative solution of problems in the economic and social realm, is
ultimately concerned with the issue of political and military struggle; functionalism treats
the promotion of welfare as an indirect approach to the prevention of warfare. Hence,
international organization reflects the variety of viewpoints and purposes which prevails
among governments.

International organizations are characterized, by supporters and critics alike, as


arrangements for cooperation among states. Most accurately, international organization
can be said to rest upon a dualistic conception of international relations, one which
acknowledges both conflictual and cooperative relationships as basic features of the

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multistate system. In principle, international organization represents an attempt to
minimize conflict and maximize collaboration among participating states, treating conflict
as an evil to be controlled and cooperation as a good to be promoted. In these terms,
international organization both denies the inevitability of war and other manifestations
of hostility among nations and expresses a commitment to the harmonization of
international relations .

International organization does not introduce a distinctive conception of international


relations but gives expression to whatever viewpoints may be dominant in the
international political arena. This analysis indicates that international organization is
essentially a process of developing a new structural and procedural framework for the
interplay of national governments within the context of the multistate system. It
represents an attempt by statesmen to improve the operation of that system by
enhancing the institutional equipment available for the conduct of relations among
states and by promoting the general acceptance of standards of state behavior
compatible with the minimum requirements of an orderly system.

Insofar as international organization represents a reformist movement within the


multistate system, it expresses the awareness of national leaders that international
order is requisite to the promotion and protection of the most basic interests of their
states. The quest for order through international organization does not involve
repudiation of national interests or subordination of national interests to an overriding
internationalism, but at most it involves the redefinition of national interests in
conformity with the demands of increasing interdependence and the commitment of
statesmen to the pursuit of those interests within the revised framework provided by
international organization .

In fact, international organization approach conflictual and cooperative aspects of


international affairs. Some international agencies are primarily concerned with problems
of conflict, while others emphasize the promotion of collaboration: within the United
Nations, for instance, the Security Council is illustrative of the former type and the
Economic and Social Council of the latter. Moreover, conflicting interests of states
intrude upon programs of cooperation, making it necessary for cooperation-oriented
agencies to deal with problems of conflict, and the common interests of states provide
how conflict-oriented agencies undertake to cope with tendencies toward international
disorder. Thus, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a regional agency inspired by
the East–West conflict after World War II, but it relies upon cooperation among its
members to enable it to meet the dangers posed by that conflict. Similarly, the concept
of collective security envisages cooperative action by most members of a general
international organization as the essential means for deterring or defeating aggression.

One of the concept of international organisation is that their activities, just like those of
governments under the Rule of Law, ought to be subject to standards. Those standards
may be internal to the organization, or external, and are often summarized under the

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heading of constitutionalism. The Second Concept Of International Organization:
Historically, international organizations have often, perhaps always, been conceptualized
as entities endowed with a single task:

1. the management of common problems.


2. Organizations, so the standard story goes, are really the extensions

of states, doing those things that states cannot do on their own.

In other words, the concept that dominates in the literature is a concept of an


international organization as endowed with tasks; a concept of an entity created by
states to do the sort of things states cannot do on their own,

for whatever reason:

1. manage an international waterway,


2. monitor human rights violations,
3. provide loans so as to facilitate economic development,
4. facilitate smooth industrial relations, et cetera.
5. Even the management of peace and security can, on this view, be reduced to,
indeed, a managerial task, something best left to experts.

Another concept of international organisation according to the words of Mr. Grenville


Clark advocated the rise of a new body of political leaders; young leaders would be
"better trained in the technique of framing a limited world government and less
inhibited by old habits of mind, to international organisation." this will be better than
"Much of the slowness in moving toward world order has been due to the difficulty of
seeing just how the machinery of a limited world government could operate. As the
study of the application of Federalism to the world problem proceeds, this mental block
will tend to disappear." One of the concept of international organization then is a three
management-oriented, functionalist and progressive concept, built on the lines of
modernism; I shall refer to it as the managerial concept. It presupposes two things:

1. first, that institutionalized cooperation between independent states will contribute


to the solution of common problems
2. and second, that increased cooperation through international organizations will
lead to a better world.

Another concept of international organisation is that it should be left into the hands of
experts, properly educated as they are, and shortsighted things such as sovereignty or
the national interest will be overcome by pure reason. And this is often the avowed
aim of international organisation.

One of the concept of international organisation as stated by the words of a former


director-general of the ILO, who held that "...international organizations must remain
constant in their fidelity to the principles of objectivity and vigor in pursuing the goals of
working for improved international understanding and for peace." The march towards
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heaven would be unstoppable; nothing less than the `salvation of mankind' would
depend on international organizations, to use Nagendra Singh's phrase. Importantly, this
managerial concept is also quite intolerant: instrumental as it is, it cannot tolerate the
thought of other concepts being equally useful. As an emanation of what Michael
Oakeshott refers to as rationalism, it has to insist that there cannot be any alternatives.
Or rather, that such alternative way of organizing as do exist are bound to be inferior.

This first, managerial, concept plays out in a variety of ways within international
organizations. It results, e.g.,

1. in depoliticisation of political issues;


2. it leads to deformalisation of decision-making,
3. and it results in the use of expert bodies and what in Europe is so characteristically
called `comitology'.

There is, however, and always has been, A Second Concept Of International
Organization. This is the concept of the international organization as a classical agora: a
public realm in which international issues can be debated and perhaps, decided.
International organizations are not created to solve every problems, much less to save
mankind. Instead, they are created as fora where states can meet, exchange ideas, and
discuss their common future, not necessarily with a view to solving problems, or indeed
even reaching an outcome, but merely for the sake of debate itself. International
organization is not a debating clubs, rather political organs established to keep each
other in check.

The British political philosopher Michael Oakeshott made distinction between societas
and universitas. Oakeshott used these two notions to describe and analyze variations in
the modern state since the 15th century. For Oakeshott, societas referred to agents
related to each other, usually on the basis of a pact or agreement, by bonds of loyalty. The
loyalty would not be loyalty to a common project, but rather to legality: the members of
such a societas were "related to one another in the continuous acknowledgement of the
authority of rules of conduct indifferent to the pursuit or the achievement of any purpose."

By contrast, universitas denotes a purposive association of people, people banding together


in order to achieve a common purpose, to attain an acknowledged end, or to promote a
specific interest. Oakeshott's contention is not so much that one concept evolves into
another, but rather that the tension between the two concepts "is central to the
understanding of the character of a modern European state and the office of its
government." Mutatis mutandis, I think the same applies to the law of international
organizations, much of which can be understood as the result of the interplay or tension
between the two different concepts of international organization.

Thus, the tension between the two concepts may help explain why we can both chide the
WTO for doing too much and for doing too little; it may help explain why we can criticize
the UN for both having expanded beyond its proper mandate, and for not doing enough
to redeem the world.
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The two concepts both a play a role in the life of international organizations. Already the
language used by international lawyers suggests the predominance of the managerial
concept. International lawyers speak of the `personality' or `identity' of organizations;
they speak of organizations having powers and a `volonté distincte' of their own; they
speak of the organization exercising tasks and functions; indeed, the dominant theory
about organizations is one which focusses on their functions, and there with is firmly
grounded in the managerial concept.

There are conceptual sound reasons why this managerial, or functional, approach could
dominate the scene. The managerial approach suggests that organizations do only what
their founders tell them to do; that they do not develop any initiatives of their own
except such as can be reconciled with their founders' intentions; and that they do not
have any rights, privileges or immunities that cannot be traced back to the desires of the
founders.

In short, the managerial approach aims to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak: it
suggests both that organizations can be active in the service of some defined good
cause, while at the same time suggesting that there are clear limits to what exactly the
organization can do. Hence, for states, jealously guarding their sovereign prerogatives,
the managerial concept proved a wonderful way of coming to terms with a new
phenomenon. And international lawyers embraced the epistemology because that is
what international lawyers are trained to do: take states and their intentions seriously.

Still, while the managerial concept may play first fiddle, the agora concept always shines
through, e.g. in the oft-heard critique of organizations should mot be `talking clubs`.
One major challenge of the managerial concept is that it must has singularly to keep
organizations in check, against taking liberties, abusing their privileged status and, most
of all perhaps, of becoming too active. It is a cliché perhaps, but to some extent
organizations have become the victims of their own success, for precisely by achieving
results they have come to threaten the state - or, more accurately perhaps, they
have come to be seen as threatening the state.

This may help explain why all the talk at present is about the responsibility
and accountability of organizations, of remedies against international organizations,
indeed of constitutionalism. The relation between the two concepts, then, is
fairly symbiotic. The state as well as organisations need each other in order to achieve
balance. But there is more to it, in that the managerial concept is increasingly being used
to justify other, less formal, forms of cooperation, ranging from 'trans-governmentalism'
to`unilateralism'. The spirit of `getting things done' should is alive and kicking internal
organisations.

The two concepts of international organization, then, are interrelated, and much of the
law is shaped in the interplay between them, but together they do not form an airtight
system of communicating barrels. Informal mechanisms may appear, unilateralism may
appear, and vertical systems (governance by topic rather than by territory) may appear.
And all of those may appear simultaneously and vie for prominence; there is no a priori
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reason why, say, the AIDS medication crisis should be approached through the WTO
rather than the WHO, some social welfare scheme set up under UN auspices, or even as
a matter of human rights. Likewise, there is no a priori reason why public regulation
should be given priority over private regulation: why not apply a code of conduct drawn
up by the pharmaceutical industry? Or, conversely, a code of conduct drawn up by
NGOs?

Still, in this competition, international organizations have a comparative advantage, and


their comparative advantage is threefold. First, the agora concept of
international organizations suggests that organizations can be seen as the ideal
playground of politics: an insulated place where the minds can meet, opinions be voiced,
and temporary coalitions forged. As someone put it recently in a different context and
using a striking image, thus conceptualized an organization may act "as the surface on
which the search for justice is conducted."

Second, and related, this holds true all the more so in a world where territorial-based
government is losing in relative importance. It is not, of course, the case that the state is
dead and buried: the state too is of value both as the repository of values and culture,
and as a neutral platform for the conduct of politics; but it is to note that often enough,
states alone are incapable of either getting things done, or of getting things done in a
legitimate manner. Organizations then can assist not just in getting things done, but also
in doing them legitimately.

Third, the formal international organization would have the advantage of being purposive.
What states do not have, and what private regimes do not have either (or have too much,
perhaps) is the facility to be used for certain particular goals. To the extent that the world is
malleable or soft, it is malleable or supple through international organizations. Those can
be given assignments; those can be given tasks and functions. By contrast, such authority
over the private sector is eminently lacking.

In the end, then, this once again underlines how societas and universitas hang together;
it once again underlines that it is a mistake to think of international organizations as
either one or the other. While it may be strategically or normatively useful, on occasion,
to highlight the managerial concept or instead to emphasize the agora concept, at the
end of the day what makes organizations tick, and what makes them so useful with a
view to global governance and steering the global market, is precisely the interaction
between the two concepts of international organization.

Benefits of International Organizations

1. International organizations can provide smaller states an opportunity for stronger


economic power. This can also help build relationships with larger states in which
some believe can prevent war between one another.
2. IO’s also give states an opportunity to be efficient and that is why states join them.
3. IO’s provides opportunity for secured worldwide trade.
4. International organizations can benefit the larger states because it shows others
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that they are willing to not always get their way on issues and it allows them to
work with others.

Limitations of International Organizations

1. Cultural differences: very hard to deal with such difference. Beyond the expertise
to understand and overcome.
2. Monitoring multiple countries: It is very important and at the same time very
difficult to closely analyze all the economic and other dynamic situations all over
the world.
3. Resistance from the domestic organizations: the domestic organizations may not
be in favor of centralization of power.
4. and political hurdles: Different countries with different political parties may lead to
diversified the government restrictions and administrative limits.

Role of International Organizations

The participating countries define the function of the International Organizations.

1. The objective of international organization is to study, collect and propagate


information, setting up of laws that are internationally accepted.
2. The international organizations also help in cooperation between different
countries by setting up negotiation deals between them.
3. The international Organizations also help in technical assistance.
4. Setting of international Norms through technical Analysis: The International
Organizations play an important role in collecting statistical information, analyzing
the trends in the variables, making a comparative study and disseminate the
information to all other countries.
5. There are some intergovernmental organizations that have set international
Minimum standards. Such norms are difficult to be set at the state level.
6. Supervisory Role: There are some international organizations that perform certain
supervisory functions. The supervisory system of the UN is very weak. In contrast,
the supervisory mechanism of the ILO is quite strong. The European Union,
together with the Commission and the Court of Justice, has a relatively strong
supervisory mechanism.

1. Technical Assistance: An important role in the recent times, is lending out


technical cooperation to the member countries. By technical cooperation we mean
the provision of intellectual or financial material to the countries, which require
them.
2. Negotiating and Setting Up Multilateral Agreements : Amongst all the roles
and activities of the international organizations, the most important is negotiating
and setting up multilateral agreements. Minimizing the transaction costs can
strengthen the cooperation between different countries.

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Beside They Also Provide Lucidity and Information. For negotiations, forums for
bargaining are set up and focal point structures are constructed during negotiations. The
multilateral agreements that are settled by the international organizations occur in
sections like environment protection, development trade, crime, human rights, etc .

International organizations serve many diverse functions, including

1. collecting information and monitoring trends (e.g., the World Meteorological


Organization),
2. delivering services and aid (e.g., the World Health Organization),

and providing forums for bargaining (e.g., the European Union)

1. and settling disputes (e.g., the World Trade Organization).


2. By providing political institutions through which states can work together to
achieve common objectives,
3. international organizations can help to foster cooperative

IGOs also serve useful purposes for individual states, which often use them as
instruments of foreign policyto legitimate their actions and to constrain the
behaviour of other states.

Although the daily operations of most international organizations are managed by


specialized international bureaucracies, ultimate authority rests with state members.
IGOs often work closely with other organizations, including NGOs (e.g., Greenpeace and
Amnesty International), which serve many of the same functions as their IGO
counterparts and are particularly useful for mobilizing public support, monitoring the
effectiveness of international aid, and providing information and expertise. Although
many of the thousands of NGOs direct their activities toward less developed countries in
Africa and Asia, some of which have authoritarian forms of government, most of these
groups are based in developed states with pluralist political systems. Only a small
fraction of NGOs is international in scope, though they have played an increasingly
important role in international relations 16.

Formation of The International Organization

A constituent act (charter), which is a type of international treaty, is the basis for the
creation and activities of each international organization. The charter usually establishes
an organization’s goals, principles, structure, and activities and is the highest law for an
international organization and its members. Its provisions must accord with and must
not contradict the norms and principles of modern international law. The highest body
of most international organizations is the general assembly (conference) of all members,
which meets periodically (either annually or once every few years). The competence of
the general assembly usually includes the adoption, review, amendment, and alteration
of the constituent act. In addition, the general assembly handles the admission of new
members, the establishment of a dues scale, and the adoption of a budget. u Most
international organizations are governed by an executive council (for example, an
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executive committee or presidium).

1. As a rule, each international organization has a standing secretariat headed by a


secretary-general or director.
2. In addition, auxiliary consultative bodies are usually established (commissions,
committees, working groups, and councils.
3. The decisions of an overwhelming majority of international organizations are
recommendations; that is, in a strictly legal sense, they are not binding on their
members.
4. International organizations contribute to the resolution of major international
problems.
5. Some international organizations give financial support to NGIOs so that they can
implement concrete programs or conduct research in which the interstate
organizations are interested.

The disadvantages of this system of ad hoc conferences were,

1. first, that for each new problem which arose a new conference had to be
convened, generally upon the initiative of one of the states concerned. The
necessity of convening each conference anew complicated and delayed
international co-operation in dealing with the problem.
2. Second, the conferences were not debating forms in the same way as the later
assemblies of the League and the United Nations; delegations attended very much
for the purposes of delivering statements of State policy and, though concessions
were often made, the conferences had a rigidity which disappeared in the later”
Permanent” assemblies of the League and the United Nations.
3. Third, the conferences were held by invitation of the sponsoring or host state;
there was no principle of membership which conferred an automatic right to
representation.
4. Fourth, the conferences adhered to the strict rule of state equality, with the
consequence that all states had an equal vote and all decisions required unanimity.
As will presently be shown, there are matters in which it is necessary to subjugate
the will of the minority to that of the majority if progress is to be made, and the
unanimity rule represented a serious restriction on the powers of the ad hoc
conference.
5. It might also be said to be a disadvantage of the conference system that, as a
political body, the conference was not ideally suited to the determination of legal
questions. There were many cases in which the issues before a conference,
although of a primarily political character, involved questions of law, of the rights or
duties of the states under international law. The Paris conference of 1856 and the
Berlin Conference of 1871, in dealing with the regime in the Black Sea, dealt very
largely with legal issues. However, it must be remembered that there existed side
by side with the conference system the traditional means of solving legal disputes,
by mediation, conciliation or arbitration although there was in this field, as in the
field of political settlement, an equal need for the creation of some permanent
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machinery. It is also unlikely that a rigid separation between” Political” and “legal”
questions can ever be achieved to allocate the latter exclusively to judicial tribunals;
politics are rarely “pure” and political matters do not cease to be such because they
involve legal rights .

However inadequate the system of ad hoc conferences was for the solution of the
political problems arising from international intercourse, it was even more inadequate
for the regulation of the relations between groups of people in different countries arising
from their common interests. The nineteenth century saw, therefore, an impassive
development of associations or unions, international in character, between groups other
than governments. This was followed by similar developments between governments
themselves in the administrative rather than the political field.

The private International unions or associations sprang from the realization by non-
governmental bodies, whether private individuals or corporate associations, that their
interests had an international character which demanded the furtherance of those
interests via a permanent international association with like bodies in other countries. In
those fields where co-operation between governments became imperative, there
developed the public international unions; these were, in fact, an essay into international
organization in the administrative sphere. The transition from private to public
organizations was gradual, and not generally accepted definition of the public
international union has over been reached. in general, however, they were permanent
associations of governments or administrations based upon a treaty of a multilateral
rather than a bilateral type and with some definite criterion of purpose .

Finally, the nineteenth century saw the creation of such intuitions as the Rhine
Commission, to deal with issues of navigation, or issues of pollution, on a regular basis.
Following the establishment of the Rhine Commission in 1915, several other river
commissions were established -managing the Elbe (1821), the Douro (1835) the Po (1849)
- and, after the end of the Crimean War, the European Commission for the Danube in
1856. At roughly the same time, organizations started to be established by private
citizens, to deal with international issues. Thus, in 1840, the world Anti-Slavery
Convention was established, and in 1863 a Swiss philanthropist, Henry Dunant, Created
the Red Cross .

The rise of modern organizations

It became clear that in many areas, international cooperation was not only required, but
also possible. True enough, states were sovereign and powerful, but, as the river
commissions showed, they could sometimes sacrifice some of their sovereign
prerogatives to facilitate the management of common problems. The most obvious area
in which international cooperation may be required is perhaps that of transport and
communication as indicated by the creation of those river commissions. Regulation of
other modes of transport and communication quickly followed: in 1865 the international
Telegraphic Union was established, followed in 1874 by the universal postal Union and in
1890 by the international Union of Railway Freight Transportation .
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Still other areas did not lag considerably behind: in 1903 the International Office of Public
Health was created, and in the field of economics the establishment of the Metric Union
(1875), the International Copyright Union (1886), the International Sugar Union (1902)
and the International Institute for Agriculture (1905) may be mentioned as early
forerunners of present-day international organization. Indeed, some of these are still in
existence, albeit under a different name and based on a different constituent treaty:
there runs a direct connection, for example, from the early international institute for
Agriculture to today’s FAO. Slowly but surely, more and more international organizations
became established, so much so that public international law gradually transformed (or
is said to be gradually transforming) from a law of co-existence to a law of cooperation.

Many of the substantive fields of public international law are no longer geared merely to
delimiting the spheres of influence of the various states, but are rather geared towards
establishing permanent mechanisms for cooperation. Around the turn of the twentieth
century it appeared indeed to be common knowledge that the organization of interstate
cooperation had become well accepted in international law. The breakthrough for
international organization however, would be the year 1919 and the Versailles peace
Settlement which followed the First World War. On 8 January 1918, US president
Woodrow Wilson made his famous ‘fourteen points’ Speech, in which he called for the
creation of a “general association of nations. Under specific covenants for affording
mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small
states alike .

Wilson’s plea was carried on the waves of public opium in many states and would lead to
the formation of the League of Nations. And not only that the international Labor
Organization was also established at the 1919 peace Conference. The League of Nations
was the first international organization which was designed not just to organization
operation between sates in areas which some have referred to as ‘low politics’, such as
transport and communication, or the more mundane aspects of economic co-operation
as exemplified by the Metric Union, but to have as its specific aims to guarantee peace
and the establishment of a system of collective security, following which an attack against
one of the member-states of the League would give the rest the right to come to the
attacked state’s rescue.

The League failed in its own overriding purpose: preventing war. On the ruins of the
Second World War the urge to organize was given a new impetus. As early as August
1941, American president Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill had conceded
the Atlantic Charter,a declaration of principles which would serve as the basis, first, for a
declaration of the wartime allies, and later, after the State Department had overcome
President Roosevelt’s initial reluctance to commit himself to the creation of a post-War
organization, for the Charter of the United Nations. Also during the war, in 1944, the
future of economic cooperation was mapped in Bretton Woods, where agreement was
reached on the need to cooperate on monetary and trade issues, eventually leading to
the creation of the international monetary Fund and the General Agreement on tariffs
and Trade, among others .
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The resurrection of the largest battlefield of the Second World War, Europe, also came
accompanied by the rise of several organizations. The Council of Europe was a first
attempt, born out of Churchill’s avowed desire to create the United States of Europe, so
that Europe could become an important power alongside the US and the UK. To channel
the American Marshall aid, the Organization for European Economic co-operation was
created (In 1960 transformed into the Organization for Economic co-operation and
Development), and a relatively small number of European states started a unique
experiment when, in 1951, they created the supranational European Coal and Steel
Community, some years later followed by the European economic Community and the
European community For atomic Energy, all three of which have now been subsumed
into the European Union. The northern and western states that remained outside would
later create an alternative in the form of the European Free Trade Area, while the state-
run economies of the east replied with the creation of the council for mutual Economic
Assistance (usually referred to as Comecon).

The influence of the Cold War also made it felt through military cooperation in Europe.
Western Europe saw the creation of the Pact of Brussels (which later became the
Western European Union) and the North Atlantic treaty Organization. Eastern Europe
saw the creation of the Warsaw Pact, while east and west would meet, from the 1970s
onwards, within the framework of the conference on security and cooperation in Europe
(CSCE), which in 1995 changed its name to reflect its increased organization structure
into organization for security and co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Moreover, elsewhere
too organizations mushroomed. On the American continent, the early Pan-American
Conference was recreated to become the Organization of American States .

In Africa, the wave of independence of the 1950s and early 1960s made possible the
establishment of the organization of African Unity in 1963, with later such regional
organizations as Ecocas (in central Africa) and Ecowas (western Africa) being added. In
Asia, some states assembled in Asean, for their security, Australia and New Zealand
joined the US in Anzus. A relaxed form of cooperation in the Pacific Rim area, moreover,
is channeled through Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC). In short, there is not a
part of the globe which is not covered by the work of some international organization or
other; there is hardly a human activity which is not, to some extent, governed by the
work of an international organization. Even academic research is at the heart of the work
of some organizations, most notably perhaps the International Council for the
exploration of the sea (ICES) originally set up as scientist’s club, having Fridtjof Nansen as
one of its founders, but later ‘internationalized’.

List of International Organizations

UN Organizations Political & Economic Organizations Financial Organizations Sports


Organizations Other Organizations Food and Agriculture Organization African, Caribbean
and Pacific Group of States (ACP) African Development Bank Asian Football
Confederation (AFC) Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) International
Atomic Energy Agency Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Asian Development

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Bank Confederation African de Football(CAF) EDU - Intergovernmental Organization
(EDU) International Civil Aviation Organization Association of Southeast Asian
Nations(ASEAN) European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Confederation of
North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF)
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) International Labor
Organization(ILO) Common Market of East and Southern Africa(COMESA) - Inter-
American Development Bank(IADB) Confederation Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL)
International Committee of the Red Cross United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Commonwealth of Independent States International Monetary Fund Fédération
International des Échecs (FIDE) International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol)
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Economic
Community of West African States Islamic Development Bank(IDB) Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, European Free Trade Association,
World Bank International, Cricket Council(ICC), International Maritime Organization,
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR), Indian Ocean Commission,
International Olympic Committee(IOC), International Organization for Migration (IOM),
United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Organisation for
Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD), International Paralympic Committee
(IPC), International Telecommunication Union, World Food Programme (WFP),
Organization for Security and Co- operation in Europe (OSCE), International Rugby Board
(IRB), Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(OPCW), World Health
Organization(WHO), Union of South American Nations (Unasur/Unasul), Oceania Football
Confederation (OFC), Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), World
Meteorological Organization (WMO), Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
(UNPO), Union of European Football Associations(UEFA), Universal Postal Union World
Tourism Organization (UNWTO), World Trade Organization(WTO) and World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO) .

CONCLUSION

This topic discusses about the definition, benefits, limitations and the types of
international organizations present. The concept and type of roles they play, the
formations of international business and finally the list of IO. To conclude this topic, we
did share with you about the facts of the international organizations that takes place in
the international business. After all the limitations like cultural differences, domestic and
governmental hurdles and other global problems still we can conclude that the
contribution of IOs towards world economy and the global business environment
creation is its biggest advantage which strengthens its existence.

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