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
2 - The rise of international 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
Traditionally, public international law has long been thought of as largely a law of co-existence: rules of international law were created, either by custom or by bilateral treaty, for the purpose of delimiting spheres of influence between states, but not much else. For the better part, international law regulated the practical aspects of sovereign states living together on Planet Earth, dealing with such issues as the jurisdiction of states, access to each other's courts, delimitation of maritime zones, and other similar issues.
To the extent that co-operation took place at all, it was of the sort which follows naturally from this co-existential character of the law. Thus, if the spheres of jurisdiction of states have been strictly delimited, it follows that rules and procedures are required, for example, to make possible the extradition of criminals captured abroad, or the enforcement of contracts concluded with foreign partners.
Although embryonic forms of international organization have been present throughout recorded history, for instance in the form of the so-called amphictyonic councils of ancient Greece, the late-medieval Hanseatic League or such precursors as the Swiss Confederation and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, it was not until the nineteenth century that international organizations as we know them today were first established. Moreover, it was not until the nineteenth century that the international system of states (at least within Europe) had become sufficiently stable to allow those states to seek forms of co-operation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Introduction to International Institutional Law , pp. 14 - 37Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009