Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the First Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- A note on documentation
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The rise of international organizations
- 3 The legal position of international organizations
- 4 The foundations for the powers of organizations
- 5 International organizations and the law of treaties
- 6 Issues of membership
- 7 Financing
- 8 Privileges and immunities
- 9 Institutional structures
- 10 Legal instruments
- 11 Decision making and judicial review
- 12 Dispute settlement
- 13 Treaty-making by international organizations
- 14 Issues of responsibility
- 15 Dissolution and succession
- 16 Concluding remarks: Towards re-appraisal and control
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Decision making and judicial review
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the First Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- A note on documentation
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The rise of international organizations
- 3 The legal position of international organizations
- 4 The foundations for the powers of organizations
- 5 International organizations and the law of treaties
- 6 Issues of membership
- 7 Financing
- 8 Privileges and immunities
- 9 Institutional structures
- 10 Legal instruments
- 11 Decision making and judicial review
- 12 Dispute settlement
- 13 Treaty-making by international organizations
- 14 Issues of responsibility
- 15 Dissolution and succession
- 16 Concluding remarks: Towards re-appraisal and control
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Whereas the previous chapter dealt with the various sorts of legal instruments that may be created by and within international organizations, this chapter deals with two related aspects. The first is the question of how those legal instruments are adopted. Second, one may wonder to what extent the adoption of instruments is governed and controlled by legal factors. In other words: are there possibilities for judicial review, and, if so, on what grounds? This entails in particular the topic of the validity of legal instruments. Studying the validity of legal instruments, in turn, leads almost inevitably to discussion of a third topic: the possibility of a hierarchy between various categories of legal instruments.
With all these issues, the complicated relationship between the organization and its member states once more comes to the fore, and the complication can perhaps best be described as one of how to protect the interests of a minority of members against the wishes of the majority. One obvious way to protect the minority is through the decision-making procedure itself; another method is by facilitating judicial review, which will in turn be greatly facilitated if there is a clear hierarchy between legal instruments.
But there is more to it than that. Most decisions will somehow also engender effects outside the limited confines of the organization itself and its member states. Obviously, this is the case when the organization decides to conclude an agreement with a third party.
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- An Introduction to International Institutional Law , pp. 205 - 228Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009