1.

0 INTRODUCTION

In the past, only States were the principal actors in international relations. However, during the
second half of the 20th century leading statesmen, politicians, scholars and private individuals
became aware that certain problems can only be resolved at a global (universal) or regional level
beyond the limited range of national borders. These problems facing the international community
of States include significant risks such as war, weapons of mass destruction, poverty and hunger,
environmental damages, contagious diseases, terrorism, organized crime, etc. Furthermore, the
removal of trade barriers became a crucial issue after the catastrophe of World War II. The origins
of the present European Union, namely the European Communities, were based on the theory that
by removing all trade and other economic barriers a political union will be established which would
make wars among their members politically, technically and legally impossible. So far, this
European dream has come true. In general, the desire for peace had been the overall idea for
international organizations, be it on an intergovernmental level (IGOs) or on a private, i.e.
nongovernmental level (NGOs). Thus military alliances among tribal communities, city states and
later nation states were the first types of international organizations1. During the 19th and the 20th
century, which may be said to be the cradle of international organizations, many other aims apart
from peace and security constituted the subject for organized international cooperation. These
subjects or needs included gradually2:

Peace and security: United Nations 1945, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 1949,
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) 1992;

Trade: German Customs Union 1834; European Economic Community (EEC) 1957; European
Free Trade Association (EFTA) 1960; International Standardization Organization (ISO); United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); World Customs Organization
(WCO); World Trade Organization (WTO) 1995; North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), European Economic Area (EEA) 1992, Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

1
Barnett Michael and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: Organizations in Global Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004).
2
Reinalda Bob, Routledge History of International Organizations: From 1815 to the Present Day (London: Routledge, 2009).
Financial Matters: Bank for International Settlements (BIS); European Central Bank (ECB);
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD); Institute of International Finance;
Inter-American Development Bank (IADB); International Monetary Fund (IMF); IMF
Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board; World Bank (IBRD). The most important example is the
present European fiscal crisis.

2.0 The United Nation (UN)

Presently, the United Nations (UN) comprises 193 States. As an international inter-governmental
organization (IGO), it serves as a framework for cooperative problem solving amongst states, and
in recent years has taken on additional political, social, economic and technological issues facing
humanity in general. Its core concern with promoting peace and security has been supplemented,
over time, by an ever-expanding economic and social agenda (Heywood, 2011:432). The UN has
a very broad and substantive scope characterized by a decentralized system with several
specialized agencies, organized around six principal organs, namely; the Security
Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the
International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the Secretariat3

2.1 Evolution of the United Nations

The need for some form of international body to streamline affairs between states is not
unconnected with a desire to control or prevent the emergence of a hegemon. Collective security
arrangements that characterized the European scene up to the outbreak of the First World
War are direct pointers to attempts to institute a balance of-power system, curtail a hegemon, and
institute a rule of law to guide the conduct of nations. Such calls for a pancontrol system had been
identified as far back as 1791, when the circular of Count Kaunitz called for European
Powers to unite to preserve public peace, the tranquility of state, the inviolability of possessions

3
Feld, W. J.; Jordan, R. S. and Hurwitz, L., International Organizations: A Comparative Approach (London:
Praeger,1994).
and the faith of treaties4. Unfortunately, all these efforts could not stop the outbreak and carnage
of the First World War. It has been observed that these efforts were inadequate, lacking the
permanence of an organization with a political character to unify the nations, settle disputes and
avert war. This was the general picture of events in Europe, leading to the establishment of the
League of Nations at the end of the war in 1919. The League was doomed from its inception, as
the US stayed away from it, and its institutional frameworks lacked strength to prevent the outbreak
of World War II. The horrors of the Second World War galvanized international statesmen to put
in place a better framework than the League to foster peace and security in the world5. The basic
motivation for the establishment of the UN was to avoid the devastating loss of life and property
caused by the two World War. The assumption was that, if the goal of peacefully settling
international disputes could be attained, then the security of all states would be enhanced. Again,
they inform that the need for such a global peacekeeping IGO was recognized as early as 1941, in
the famous Atlantic Charter which was drafted by President Roosevelt of the United States and
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill6.

2.2 Understanding the UN Mandate/Purpose

UN term include innovations to repair the deficiencies of the League and reconstitute some of
the Leagues Organs (Nel and McGowan, 1999: 112). Thus, one of its key features is to make the
offensive use of force, by any member state, illegal. We can recall that under the League system,
a Collective Security System was provided, whereby an act of war would bring political, economic,
and possibly military sanctions against the aggressor. Consequently, the framers of the UN,
conscious of the shortcomings of the League, desired that states could use force only for self-
defense, collective self-defense, and collective security. The following are the Purposes of the
UN7;

1) To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective
measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of

4
Nicolson, H. (sir), Diplomacy. (Washington DC: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 1963).
5
Appadorai, A., The substance of politics (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,1975)
6
Feld, Jordan and Hurwitz, International Organizations: A Comparative Approach.
7
Ekpotuatin Charles A., The United Nations and Its Peace Purpose: An Assessment Journal of Conflictology, 2014,
no 5:1.
aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity
with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international
disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2) To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights
and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal
peace;
3) To achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social,
cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights
and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
4) To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
(The United Nations Charter). It is discernible that concern for world peace is a dominant theme
in the United Nations system.

2.3 UN Peace Efforts/Initiatives

As of 31, January 2013, the UN peace initiatives around the world, from 1948, stood at 67. By
2009, 16 of these efforts remained active, involving 80,000 troops, almost 11,000 uniformed
policemen and about 2,300 military observers drawn from 117 countries8. Additionally, its
operations were supported by 6,000 international civilian personnel, 13,000 local civilian
personnel and over 2,000 volunteer workers, with the budget for its 2008-09 operations alone
amounting to 7.1 billion dollars. The UN has faced numerous tests over the years. Its litmus test
came in the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. We can recall that in 1947, a special UN
Committee suggested the creation of an Arab State, a Jewish State and a UN administered
Jerusalem out of partitioned Palestine. Whereas the Jews accepted this offer, the Arabs were totally
against it. In the ensuing first Arab-Israeli War, the bloodletting warranted sending in of an
unarmed UN team under the aegis of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation
(UNTSO). Similarly, the hasty partition of India and Pakistan heralded conflict between the two
new states over Kashmir in 1947, following British withdrawal. The UN was able to broker a

8
Howard, M, The invention of peace: reflections on war and international order (London: Yale University Press,
2001).
cease-fire by January 1949 and subsequently deployed a military observer group (UNMOGIP) to
maintain the cease-fire. Again, in a dispute arising out of colonialism in 1949, the UN played a
mediatory role between the Dutch and Indonesia, leading to the independence of the latter. It
played a similar role that led to independence for the former Italian colonies of Libya, Somaliland
and Eritrea. From this time, the UN took on a political role, rather than just its peacekeeping one9.

Thus, the UN adopted a fourfold characteristic of peacekeeping as its yardstick. These became;
the understanding that operational personnel are to be drawn from armed forces of UN Member
States with no interest in a dispute and such deployed forces are to adopt a non-threatening and
impartial approach; use weapons only in self-defense and assert freedom of movement; its
functions are to defuse tensions, calm and settle or resolve the dispute; and that, deployment of
forces must be based on the cooperation of the disputants who must give their consent, and the
force can be removed if consent is withdrawn10

Consequently, between 1949 and the end of the 1980s, the UN directed 16 operations, with
differing challenges and responsibilities. Whereas, a few were core peacekeeping operations,
others were emergency interventions, observer groups and even transition monitoring and
assistance operations. A select few are highlighted below.

Following the Suez crises of 1956, in which Egypt was made to face British, French and Israeli
Forces, the UN, through a General Assembly United for Peace procedure, which enabled it to
bypass the British and French vetoes in the Security Council, sent in a 6,000 strong (UNEF I)
Force to the Sinai, as a buffer between Egyptian and Israeli forces. This Emergency Force also
facilitated the withdrawal of British and French forces from the Canal Zone and remained until
196711.

The Belgian-Congo crisis of 1960-63, provided another avenue for the UN to intervene in an
intrastate conflict, to make peace. Belgium had unilaterally intervened to restore order, more as a
post-colonial responsibility. However, the escalation of the crisis in the form of Katangas
secessionist bid compelled the Congolese government to call on the UN to assist. The UN, upon

9
Charles, The United Nations and Its Peace Purpose: An Assessment, 5.
10
Goulding, M, The evolving role of the Unite Nations peacekeeping operations. In: The Singapore Symposium
on the Changing Role of the United Nation in Conflict Resolution and Peacekeeping, 13-15 March, 1991.
11
Howard, M, The invention of peace: reflections on war and international order (London: Yale University Press,
2001)
getting Security Council authorization, dutifully sent in a 20,000 strong peacekeeping force which
was able to supervise the withdrawal of Belgian forces and restore normalcy to the Congo. Again,
by 1973, the UN was compelled to send in another Emergency Force, (UNEF II), to stand as a
buffer between Israel and the Arab nations. Also, in 1988, the UN brokered a cease-fire and
withdrawal of forces between Iran and Iraq following their bitter and long war12.

The intrigues of the Cold War limited the UNs ability to act. During this period, the UN could not
intervene in many conflict situations such as Guatemala 1954, Panama 1964, and Dominican
Republic 196513.

The UN was also unable to handle the French policy in Algeria. This inability of the UN to act
decisively in the face of Super Power squabbles, informed some observers to conclude that during
this period, it had little relevance and was shunted to the margins. In buttressing this point,
former Secretary General Boutros Ghali admitted that since the creation of the UN in 1945, the
UN was rendered powerless to deal with many crisis because of the vetoes 279 of them cast in
the Security Council, which were vivid expressions of the divisions of that period.

The post-Cold War years provided the UN with an opportunity to reexamine its role in the
resolution of conflicts and peacekeeping. In one view, for the first time, since the establishment
of the UN, the basic structure of bipolar confrontations between the two power blocs fast
disappeared, and that, somewhat paradoxically, the need for controlling new conflicts emanating
from a variety of factors, such as ambition for hegemony, or rivalry on ethnic and religious
grounds, had become all the more greater14. The test case came in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
In the ensuing Persian Gulf War2 of 1991, the US and the Soviets cooperated to achieve UN
Security. The Persian Gulf War is regarded as a triumph of Collective Security. It was a
demonstration of the UN to renew its capacity to fulfill its obligation of deterring aggression and
maintaining world peace.

12
Charles, The United Nations and Its Peace Purpose: An Assessment, 5.
13
Feld, Jordan and Hurwitz, International Organizations: A Comparative Approach.
14
Owada, H, Opening address. In: The Singapore Symposium on the Changing Role of the United Nations in
Conflict Resolution and Peacekeeping, 13-15 March, 1991
The UN increasingly involved itself in the non-military aspects of peacekeeping, as the bulk of its
up to 50 missions between the early 1990s and 2012 centered on the provision of emergency relief,
political reconstruction and peacebuilding, not only in war ravaged states, but also in those faced
with humanitarian disasters occasioned by natural causes, such as Haiti. The UNs referenda and
transitional authority responsibilities in Western Sahara, Cambodia, Kosovo, Slovenia and East
Timor, are but a few pointers to its ever increasing humanitarian peace projects, with peace
building support services retained in most peacekeeping missions to reinforce the peace process

and promote human rights, democracy and the rule of law15.

Post-Cold War peace initiatives necessitated a synergistic collaboration between the UN and
regional organizations. By the 1990s, the UN was working with the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the European Union (EU) to, intervene and
restore peace and provide humanitarian assistance in Liberia and the rump state of the former
Yugoslavia16.

Recent events in Libya which led to the collapse of the Ghadaffi regime, under the auspices of the
European Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) led intervention, and the efforts of French
and African Troops in Mali, underpin the role of regional bodies and the responsibility to protect
doctrine, which has recently been relied upon to address conflict situations and in complementing
the UN in the maintenance of international peace. Moreover, the concept of peace has been further
expanded in contemporary times, as a means of justifying and tackling terrorism and support for
it. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, UN
resolutions (SCR 1368 and SCR1373), were used against the Taleban regime in Afghanistan, and
for banning all forms of support for terrorism17

15
Armstrong, D.; Lloyd, L and Redmond, J, International organization in world politics (London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2004)
16
Charles, ibid.
17
Armstrong, Lloyd, Redmond, ibid.
In conclusion, the establishment of the UNs peace efforts and initiatives in 1945 is that first the
UN came into being because of the fear of war and its consequences. Second, the UN, despite the
constraints imposed on it by Cold War rivalries, has been able to make appreciable efforts in
enthroning peace in the world through its various peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding
programs, which by 2013 stood at 67, with 15 still ongoing, and some having been started several
decades ago

3.0 The European Union

The European Union is a geo-political entity covering a large portion of the European continent.
It is founded upon numerous treaties and has undergone expansions that have taken it from 6
member states to 28, a majority of the states in Europe.

Apart from the ideas of federation, confederation, or customs union, the original development of
the European Union was based on a supranational foundation that would "make war unthinkable
and materially impossible"18 and reinforce democracy amongst its member as laid out by Robert
Schuman and other leaders in the Schuman Declaration (1950) and the Europe Declaration (1951).
This principle was at the heart of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) (1951), the
Treaty of Paris (1951), and later the Treaty of Rome (1958) which established the European
Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC). Both the
ECSC and EEC were later incorporated into the European Union while the EAEC maintains a
distinct legal identity despite sharing members and institutions19.

The Maastricht Treaty (1992) created the European Union with its pillars system, including foreign
and home affairs alongside the European Community. This in turn led to the creation of the single
European currency, the euro (launched 1999). The Maastricht Treaty has been amended by the
treaties of Amsterdam (1997), Nice (2001) and Lisbon (2007).

18
Robert Schuman, Schuman Declaration and the birth of Europe, http://www.schuman.info/9May1950.htm
19
E. European Unity", Garmisch-Partenkirchen Conference, Bilderberg Group, p. 3, . Retrieved 27 November 2016
Through successive enlargements, the European Union has grown from the six founding states
Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlandsto the current 28.
Countries accede to the union by becoming party to the founding treaties, thereby subjecting
themselves to the privileges and obligations of EU membership. This entails a partial delegation
of sovereignty to the institutions in return for representation within those institutions, a practice
often referred to as "pooling of sovereignty"20

To become a member, a country must meet the Copenhagen criteria, defined at the 1993 meeting
of the European Council in Copenhagen. These require a stable democracy that respects human
rights and the rule of law; a functioning market economy; and the acceptance of the obligations of
membership, including EU law. Evaluation of a country's fulfilment of the criteria is the
responsibility of the European Council. No member state has yet left the Union, although
Greenland (an autonomous province of Denmark) withdrew in 1985. The Lisbon Treaty now
contains a clause under Article 50, providing for a member to leave the EU. On 23 June 2016, the
United Kingdom voted by referendum to leave the EU. However, it remains a member until it
officially exits, and has not yet begun formal withdrawal procedures.21

There are six countries that are recognised as candidates for membership: Albania, Iceland,
Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey, though Iceland suspended negotiations in 2013.
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are officially recognised as potential candidates, with Bosnia
and Herzegovina having submitted a membership application.

The four countries forming the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) are not EU members,
but have partly committed to the EU's economy and regulations: Iceland, Liechtenstein and
Norway, which are a part of the single market through the European Economic Area, and
Switzerland, which has similar ties through bilateral treaties. The relationships of the European

20
EU institutions and other bodies". Europa. Retrieved 27 November 2016
21
European Commission Enlargement Candidate and Potential Candidate Countries", ec.europa.eu. Retrieved
27 November 2016
microstates, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and the Vatican include the use of the euro and other
areas of co-operation. 22

3.1 Objectives of the EU

The European Union is a unique economic and political union between 28 European countries that
together cover much of the continent. The EU was created in the aftermath of the Second World
War. The first steps were to foster economic cooperation: the idea being that countries that trade
with one another become economically interdependent and so more likely to avoid conflict. The
result was the European Economic Community (EEC), created in 1958, and initially increasing
economic cooperation between six countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and
the Netherlands. Since then, a huge single market has been created and continues to develop
towards its full potential. The Objectives are as follows23;

From economic to political union

What began as a purely economic union has evolved into an organization spanning policy areas,
from climate, environment and health to external relations and security, justice and migration. A
name change from the European Economic Community (EEC) to the European Union (EU) in
1993 reflected this. The EU is based on the rule of law: everything it does is founded on treaties,
voluntarily and democratically agreed by its member countries. The EU is also governed by the
principle of representative democracy, with citizens directly represented at Union level in the
European Parliament and Member States represented in the European Council and the Council of
the EU.

Mobility, growth, stability and a single currency

The EU has delivered more than half a century of peace, stability and prosperity, helped raise
living standards and launched a single European currency: the euro. In 2012, the EU was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize for advancing the causes of peace, reconciliation, democracy and human

22
Jordan, A.J. and Adelle, C. (eds), Environmental Policy in the European Union: Contexts, Actors and Policy
Dynamics (3e). (Earthscan: London and Sterling, Virginia,2012)
23
The EU in brief, https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/eu-in-brief_en, . Retrieved 27 November 2016
rights in Europe. Thanks to the abolition of border controls between EU countries, people can
travel freely throughout most of the continent. And it has become much easier to live, work and
travel abroad in Europe. The single or 'internal' market is the EU's main economic engine, enabling
most goods, services, money and people to move freely. Another key objective is to develop this
huge resource also in other areas like energy, knowledge and capital markets to ensure that
Europeans can draw the maximum benefit from it.

Human rights and equality

One of the EU's main goals is to promote human rights both internally and around the world.
Human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights: these
are the core values of the EU. Since the Lisbon Treaty's entry in force in 2009, the EU's Charter
of Fundamental Rights brings all these rights together in a single document. The EU's institutions
are legally bound to uphold them, as are EU governments whenever they apply EU law.

Transparent and democratic institutions

The enlarged EU remains focused on making its governing institutions more transparent and
democratic. More powers have been given to the directly elected European Parliament, while
national parliaments play a greater role, working alongside the European institutions. In turn,
European citizens have an ever-increasing number of channels for taking part in the political
process.
 4.0 World Trade Organization (WTO)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization which regulates

international trade. The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh
Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948. The WTO deals with regulation of trade between
participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating trade agreements and a dispute
resolution process aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO agreements, which are
signed by representatives of member governments and ratified by their parliaments. Most of the
issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the
Uruguay Round (19861994).24

The WTO is attempting to complete negotiations on the Doha Development Round, which was
launched in 2001 with an explicit focus on developing countries. As of June 2012, the future of
the Doha Round remained uncertain: the work programme lists 21 subjects in which the original
deadline of 1 January 2005 was missed, and the round is still incomplete. The conflict between
free trade on industrial goods and services but retention of protectionism on farm subsidies to
domestic agricultural sector (requested by developed countries) and the substantiation of fair trade
on agricultural products (requested by developing countries) remain the major obstacles. This
impasse has made it impossible to launch new WTO negotiations beyond the Doha Development
Round. As a result, there have been an increasing number of bilateral free trade agreements
between governments. As of July 2012, there were various negotiation groups in the WTO system
for the current agricultural trade negotiation which is in the condition of stalemate25.

24
World Trade Organization - Understanding The WTO: Basics,
https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact4_e.htm, Retrieved 27 November, 2016.
25
The Challenges to the World Trade Organization: Its All About Legitimacy The Brookings Institution, Policy Paper
2011-04
4.1 Functions of the WTO

Among the various functions of the WTO, these are regarded by analysts as the most important:

It oversees the implementation, administration and operation of the covered agreements26.

It provides a forum for negotiations and for settling disputes27.

Additionally, it is the WTO's duty to review and propagate the national trade policies, and to ensure
the coherence and transparency of trade policies through surveillance in global economic policy-
making. Another priority of the WTO is the assistance of developing, least-developed and low-
income countries in transition to adjust to WTO rules and disciplines through technical cooperation
and training28.

1. The WTO shall facilitate the implementation, administration and operation and further the
objectives of this Agreement and of the Multilateral Trade Agreements, and shall also
provide the frame work for the implementation, administration and operation of the
multilateral Trade Agreements.
2. The WTO shall provide the forum for negotiations among its members concerning their
multilateral trade relations in matters dealt with under the Agreement in the Annexes to
this Agreement.
3. The WTO shall administer the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the
Settlement of Disputes.
4. The WTO shall administer Trade Policy Review Mechanism.
5. With a view to achieving greater coherence in global economic policy making, the WTO
shall cooperate, as appropriate, with the international Monetary Fund (IMF) and with the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and its affiliated
agencies.29

26
Functions of the WTO, IISD,
27
ibid
28
WTO Assistance for Developing Countries, WTO official site, Archived 12 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine,
https://web.archive.org/web/20150612192912/http://www.wto.int/english/tratop_e/devel_e/teccop_e/tct_e.ht
m, Retreived 27 November, 2016
29
ibid
The above five listings are the additional functions of the World Trade Organization. As
globalization proceeds in today's society, the necessity of an International Organization to manage
the trading systems has been of vital importance. As the trade volume increases, issues such as
protectionism, trade barriers, subsidies, violation of intellectual property arise due to the
differences in the trading rules of every nation. The World Trade Organization serves as the
mediator between the nations when such problems arise. WTO could be referred to as the product
of globalization and also as one of the most important organizations in today's globalized society.

The WTO is also a centre of economic research and analysis: regular assessments of the global
trade picture in its annual publications and research reports on specific topics are produced by the
organization. Finally, the WTO cooperates closely with the two other components of the Bretton
Woods system, the IMF and the World Bank30.

4.2 Principle of the WTO

The WTO establishes a framework for trade policies; it does not define or specify outcomes. That
is, it is concerned with setting the rules of the trade policy games. Five principles are of particular
importance in understanding both the pre-1994 GATT and the WTO:

1. Non-discrimination. It has two major components: the most favoured nation (MFN) rule,
and the national treatment policy. Both are embedded in the main WTO rules on goods,
services, and intellectual property, but their precise scope and nature differ across these
areas. The MFN rule requires that a WTO member must apply the same conditions on all
trade with other WTO members, i.e. a WTO member has to grant the most favourable
conditions under which it allows trade in a certain product type to all other WTO members.
"Grant someone a special favour and you have to do the same for all other WTO members."
National treatment means that imported goods should be treated no less favourably than
domestically produced goods (at least after the foreign goods have entered the market) and

30
Economic research and analysis, WTO official site, https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/reser_e.htm,
Retrieved 26 November, 2016.
 was introduced to tackle non-tariff barriers to trade (e.g. technical standards, security
standards et al. discriminating against imported goods).31
2. Reciprocity. It reflects both a desire to limit the scope of free-riding that may arise because
of the MFN rule, and a desire to obtain better access to foreign markets.
3. Binding and enforceable commitments. The tariff commitments made by WTO members
in a multilateral trade negotiation and on accession are enumerated in a schedule (list) of
concessions32.
4. Transparency. The WTO members are required to publish their trade regulations, to
maintain institutions allowing for the review of administrative decisions affecting trade, to
respond to requests for information by other members, and to notify changes in trade
policies to the WTO.
5. Safety valves. In specific circumstances, governments are able to restrict trade. The WTO's
agreements permit members to take measures to protect not only the environment but also
public health, animal health and plant health33.

5.0 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is
an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on
4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member
states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters
are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, where the Supreme Allied Commander also resides.
Belgium is one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which,
Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's
Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue

31
Bernard Hoekman, The WTO: Functions and Basic Principles in Bernard M. Hoekman, Aaditya Mattoo, Philip
English (eds), Development, Trade and the WTO: A handbook. (Washington, DC: The Wolrd Bank, pp 41-9, 2002).
32
ibid
33
ibid
programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the
global total. Members' defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP.34

NATO was little more than a political association until the Korean War galvanized the
organization's member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction
of two US supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the
Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the
European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of
the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasiondoubts that led to the development of
the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO's military
structure in 1966 for 30 years. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the organization was drawn
into the breakup of Yugoslavia, and conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia from 1992
to 1995 and later Yugoslavia in 1999. Politically, the organization sought better relations with
former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 200435.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, requiring member states to come to the aid of any member
state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11
attacks, after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF. The
organization has operated a range of additional roles since then, including sending trainers to Iraq,
assisting in counter-piracy operations and in 2011 enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya in accordance
with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973. The less potent Article 4, which merely invokes
consultation among NATO members, has been invoked five times: by Turkey in 2003 over the
Iraq War; twice in 2012 by Turkey over the Syrian Civil War, after the downing of an unarmed
Turkish F-4 reconnaissance jet, and after a mortar was fired at Turkey from Syria; in 2014 by
Poland, following the Russian intervention in Crimea; and again by Turkey in 2015 after threats
by the Islamic State to its territorial integrity36.

34
Erlanger, Steven, "Europe Begins to Rethink Cuts to Military Spending". nytimes.com. Retrieved 27 November,
2016.
35
ibid
36
"Counter-piracy operations". North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_48815.htm, Retrieved 27 November, 2016.
 Conclusion
The political study of international institutions reveals a vibrant and diverse body of scholarship.
In recent decades, research has turned from the study of formal IOs to the study of regimes and
institutions, informal as well as formal. For the most part, this turn has been salutary, as it has
reflected a broad interest not only in formal organizations but in the deeper role that rules and
norms play in a system of formally co-equal states. Initially, this turn was instigated by the
observation that much of what is interesting about world politics especially during the Cold War
period seemed to take place among intensely interdependent actors, but beyond the purview of
formal interstate organizations. The role of international organizations are helping to set the
international agenda, mediating political bargaining, providing place for political initiatives and
acting as catalysts for coalition- formation. International organizations also define the salient issues
and decide which issues can be grouped together, thus help governmental priority determination
or other governmental arrangements.