Introduction

While international organizations are generally created for longer periods of time, indeed usually even without any definite time period in mind, not all of them manage to survive indefinitely. Some simply disappear without being succeeded to in any way; prime examples are the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, both of which were dismantled after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 26 June 1991, a ministerial meeting of Comecon members decided to dissolve the organization, whereas the Warsaw Pact was disbanded at a meeting of its Political Consultative Committee in Prague, on 1 July 1991.

In other cases, organizations are remodelled to cope with new or unexpected demands, or are succeeded by new entities providing similar services and exercising similar functions to their predecessors. The most famous example is, in all likelihood, that of the League of Nations which, for all practical if not all legal purposes, has found a successor in the United Nations. Others include the ‘reconstitution’ of the OEEC into the OECD, the transformation of the Brussels Pact into the WEU, and the transition from GATT to WTO.

The main legal questions arising, whether an organization dissolves or is succeeded to, pertain to the functions, personnel, and assets and liabilities of the predecessor organization. Will they disappear? Will they continue to exist? How, if at all, will they be distributed? A preliminary question is whether dissolution (and succession) are possible to begin with, and by what modalities.