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
4 - The foundations for the powers of organizations
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
International organizations, it is generally agreed, can only work on the basis of their legal powers. Thus, organizations have acquired certain powers to found their actions on, and once they act beyond those powers, their acts may be declared invalid, at least in theory. To give a simple example: it is reasonably clear that a predominantly economic organization such as the OECD will not be able to enter into a military pact; if and when it does, the act by which such a pact was concluded will, if all works according to plan, be invalidated.
That raises the fundamental question of where organizations derive their powers from, and, if anything, it is this precise question which has boggled our minds for decades and is likely to continue to do so. Surprisingly, analysis as well as conceptualization has rarely been forthcoming; most authors content themselves with making a few general remarks on the powers of organizations before moving on to their specific topic of investigation. Monographs are, in other words, scarce, as are scholarly articles on the topic.
Fortunately, though, there is a wealth of court decisions on the powers of organizations, going back to the early 1920s. Questions as to the origin and scope of the powers of international organizations arose in one of the first requests for an advisory opinion submitted to the Permanent Court of International Justice, in 1922.
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- Information
- An Introduction to International Institutional Law , pp. 53 - 73Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009