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1 Introduction:
In contemporary global politics, international organizations play an enormous role. To most of the world, they symbolize the hope for international peace and security through global cooperation and mutual economic development. Examples of international organizations include the United Nations (UN), the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Greenpeace. Most international organizations operate as part of one or more international regimes. An international regime is a set of rules, standards, and procedures that govern national behaviour in a particular area. Examples of international regimes include arms control, foreign trade, and Antarctic exploration. International organizations are often central to the functioning of an international regime, giving structure and procedures to the rules of the game by which nations must play. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the European Union (EU) are key organizations that define the international trade regime.
International organizations also differ in its scope of functions, membership and membership criteria. In terms of scope, international organisations perform a varied number of useful functions within the state system. Their chief function is to provide the means of cooperation among states in areas in which cooperation provides advantages for all or large number of nations. They not only work as a platform to take cooperative decisions but also the administrative tool for translating the decisions into action. They also provide multiple channels of communication among governments so that areas of accommodation may be explored and easy access will be available when problem arise. In conflict situations, if states are willing to explore the possibilities of accommodation and compromise, modern international organisations have made available a new dimension beyond the previously existing channels of diplomacy and peaceful settlement. The United Nations, the Specialised Agencies, and regional organisations provide multiple and continuous contact points through which accommodation can be reached. We must note that international organisations generally have no independent means of carrying out coercion. But states, needing to minimise the effects of conflict, find the many and diverse agencies of international organisation useful for that end. The United Nations, for example, provides several major organs whose functions include the resolution of conflict. In other situations not involving conflict, as in some of the technical work of international organisations, cooperation is facilitated by the existence of these organisations for reaching agreements that have mutual advantages for all state concerned. The fundamental idea and reality underlying modern international organisations involve diplomacy, treaties, conferences, rules of warfare, the regulation of the use of force, peaceful settlement of disputes, the development of international law, international trade, international economic cooperation, international social cooperation, cultural relationship, world travel, world communications, cosmopolitanism, universalism, peace movements, the formation of leagues and federations, international administration, collective security, and movements for world government. The role of international organisations in the contemporary world order depends on their legal recognition by the international community. In other words, the organisation is a subject of international laws and capable of enforcing them by bringing international claims. It can make treaties; it can coordinate with other organisations to avoid unsound competition or duplication of efforts. To perform their functions effectively, international organisations are endowed with certain privilege and immunities. The agents and servants who perform the functions of international organisations also possess privilege and immunities. International organisations are also entitled to the grant of privileges and immunities for their asset, properties and representatives. Privileges for the representatives may include from personal arrest or detention and from seizer of their personal baggage, and in respect of words written or spoken and all acts done by them in their capacity as representatives; immunity from legal process of every kind; inviolability for all papers and documents; the rights to use codes and to receive papers or correspondence by courier or in sealed bags; freedom from direct taxes; and immunity from jurisdiction.
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) seeks to coordinate the production and pricing policies of its 12 member states. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seeks to regulate the flow of nuclear technology to developing nations. The WTO helps negotiate and monitor agreements among 128 nations to lower trade barriers. Military alliances, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), and political groupings, such as the Arab League, and the African Union are also IGOs. In general, regional IGOs have experienced more success than global ones, and those with specific purposes have worked better than those with broad aims. 1.4.2 International Nongovernmental organizations: International Nongovernmental organizations are private organizations whose memberships and activities are international in scope. NGOs do not possess the legal status of national governments. However, the UN and other international forums recognize many NGOs as important political institutions. Examples of NGOs include the Roman Catholic Church, Greenpeace, the International Olympic Committee, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Although multinational corporations (MNCs) share many characteristics of NGOs, they are not international organizations because they do not coordinate the actions of members for mutual gain. The IGOs can be further categories on the basis of the nature of their functioning, global and regional membership, membership criteria, and cultural or historical links. Membership of some organizations (global organizations) is open to all the nations of the world. This category includes the United Nations and its specialized agencies and the World Trade Organization. Other organizations are only open to members from a particular region or continent of the world, like European Union, African Union, and ASEAN and so on. Finally, some organizations base their membership on other criteria: cultural or historical links (the Commonwealth of Nations, La Francophonie, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Latin Union), level of economic development or type of economy (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC), or religion (Organization of the Islamic Conference).
Europe ceased to pose a threat to the capitalist democracies of Western Europe. One might have expected NATO, which defended Western European nations, to go out of business, but it did not. Similarly, the creation of the WTO did not cause smaller free-trade associations such as NAFTA to end. Instead, the mosaic of International Organisations continues to expand, particularly as new communications and information-processing technologies make international groups more practical and effective. The interdependence of nations in the modern world means that no single nation can dictate the outcome of international conflicts. Nor can private groups and individuals rely on national governments to solve major world problems. Therefore, both governments and individuals will continue to turn to International Organisations as an important way to address these problems and to protect their own interests. As the world shrinks, the line between domestic and international problems becomes increasingly blurred. International events have their international implications. In this situation, the international organisations may serve as useful tools of the states for their mutual cooperation.
A direct consequence, Germany, beaten and excluded from the League by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, became a Member in 1926. In 1929, the delegate from France, Aristide Briand, put forward to the Assembly the very first political project of a European Federal Union. In spite of these early successes, the League of Nations did not manage to prevent neither the invasion of Mandchuria by Japan, nor the annexation of Ethiopia by Italy in 1936, nor that of Austria by Hitler in 1938. The powerlessness of the League of Nations to prevent further world conflict, the alienation of part of its Member States and the generation of the war itself, added to its demise from 1940. The failure, politically, of the mission of collective security of the League of Nations must nevertheless not make one overlook its success in, what was from the beginning to be a secondary aspect of its objectives: international technical cooperation. Under its auspices, in fact, considerable number of conferences, intergovernmental committees and meetings of experts were held in Geneva, in areas as diverse as health and social affairs, transport and communications, economic and financial affairs and intellectual cooperation. This fruitful work was validated by the ratification of more than one hundred conventions by the Member States. The unprecedented work on behalf of refugees carried out by the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen from 1920 should also be stressed. The concept of international organization was however firmly embedded in minds and on the 1st January 1942, the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, announced the term, United Nations. On 26 June 1945, the Representatives of fifty countries meeting in San Francisco adopted the Charter of the United Nations, founder of the new international organization. The United Nations Organization was born officially on 24th October 1945 when the signatory countries ratified the Charter. Dissolved at a final Assembly held in Geneva in April 1946, the League of Nations handed over its properties and assets to the United Nations Organization. In spite of its political failure, the legacy of the League of Nations at the same time appears clearly in a number of principles stated by the Charter and in the competencies and experiences developed in the area of technical cooperation: the majority of the specialized institutions of the United Nations system can in fact be considered the legacy of the work initiated by the League of Nations.