History and genesis of international organizations – key historical periods and organizational specifics of international entities

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, Spring 2022

QUESTIONS FOR ORAL EXAMINATION

What is “international organization” from the conceptual prospective? Concept meanings in plural and in singular. Provide concrete examples for both concepts.

International organization (in singular) is a process; international organizations (in plural) are representative aspectsof the phase in this process which has been reached at a given time

International organizations and international institutions. Provide definitions and examples.

International organizations - formal instantiations (implementations) of certain aspects of international institutions, that come with specific attributes such as buildings and bureaucracies, and budgets.

International organizations refer to those groups of people and the governance they create in an effort to coordinate collective action for the pursuit of specific international public or private or mixed services (goods) (e.g. enforce international laws- Int. Court of Justice –ICJ; FIFA-football)

International institutions - international regimes or set of explicit and implicit principles, norms and agreements – i.e. “rules of the game” in international politics, economics, trade and finance, consisting of:

• the formal legal rules (such as international law) and formal agreements (GATT)

• the informal social norms (such as international ethics) that govern individual behavior, and structure social interactions among states and other actors on the international stage

Definitions of international organizations from legal and organizational prospective. Specifics of each definition, meaning.

by OECD Statistical Glossary: (from legal perspective)

International organizations are:

Ø entities established by formal political agreements between their members that have the status of international treaties;

Ø their existence is recognized by law in their member countries;

Ø they are not treated as resident institutional units of the countries in which they are located.

A formal international organization must: (from organizational perspective)

Ø consist of at least two qualified members of the international system;

Ø have been created by a formal instrument of agreement between the governments of national states;

Ø hold more or less regular plenary sessions at intervals not greater than a decade

Ø have a permanent secretariat with a permanent headquarters which performs ongoing tasks.

Michael Wallace and David Singer (1970)

IOs are… formal, continuous structures established by agreement between members… from two or more sovereign states with the aim of pursuing the common interest of membership

4. History of international organizations – evolution from Ancient times to the end of 19^th century

The development of international organizations has been, in the main, a response

to the evident need arising from international intercourse rather than to the

philosophical or ideological appeal of the notion of world government. The growth

of international intercourse, in the sense of the development of relations between

different peoples, was a constant feature of maturing civilizations; advances in the

mechanics of communications combined with the desire for trade to produce a

degree of intercourse which ultimately called for regulation by institutional means.

The institution of the consul, an official of the State whose essential task was to

watch over the interests of the citizens of this State engaged in commerce in a

foreign port, was known to the Greeks and the Romans. It survives to this day as

one of the less spectacular, but important, institutions of international law. The

consul was not, however, concerned with representing his state as such, and for

this purpose ambassadors were used, being dispatched for the purpose of a specific negotiation. By the fifteenth century this intermittent diplomacy had been replaced

in the relations of certain of the Italian States by the institution of a permanent

diplomatic ambassador in the capital of the receiving State, and the practice of

exchanging ambassadors, complete with staff and embassy premises, is now a

normal (albeit not compulsory) feature of relations between states. Consular and

Diplomatic institutions can be found the origins of the subsequent and more

complex institutions.

Although embryonic forms of international organizations have been present

throughout recorded history, for instance, in the form of the so called amphictyonic

councils of ancient Greece, the late-medieval Hanseatic Leagueor 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 cooperation.

Situations soon arose in which the essentially bilateral relationships established by

diplomatic embassies or missions were inadequate. For example, a problem would

arise which concerned not two but many States, and whether what was proposed

was a series of negotiations or even a formal treaty, there had to be found a means

for representing the interests of all the states concerned.

The means was the international conference, a gathering of representatives from

several states: simply diplomacy writ large. The peace of Westphalia in 1648

emanated from such a conference, as did the settlement after the Napoleonic wars

in 1815 through the congress of Vienna and, even later, the post-1918 settlement

negotiated at the Paris conference of 1919 and embodied in the Treaty of

Versailles. After the watershed Westphalian peace of 1648, international so-called

congresses had become a regular mode of diplomacy: whenever a problem arose, a

conference was convened to discuss it and, if possible at all takes steps towards a

solution. After the defeat of Napoleon, a new development took place.

The Congress of Vienna of 1815 had seen the initiation of the “concert system”

which, for the purposes of any study of international organization, constituted a

significant development. As sponsored by the Czar Alexander I, what was

envisaged was an alliance of the victorious powers pledged to conduct diplomacy

according to ethical standards, which would convene at congresses held at regular

intervals. In fact, four congresses were held between 1818 and 1822 - at Aix-la-

Chappelle (1818), at Troppau and Laibach (1820, 1821), and at Verona (1822) -

but the idea of regular congresses was later abandoned, and meetings took place as

occasion required. The attempt to secure regular meetings was, however, a

significant recognition that the “Pace” of international relations demanded some

institutions for regular multilateral negotiations.

Moreover, the Congress of Vienna (1815) and its aftermath launched some other

novelties as well, the most remarkable of which was perhaps the creation of a

supranational military force under the command of Wellington.

Clearly, any general post war settlement demanded a more general participation in

the negations than could easily be achieved via the traditional methods of

diplomatic intercourse. Bilateral negation also proved inadequate for other

problems of a general nature. The congress of Berlin of 1871 was convened to

consider the Russian repudiation of the regime for the Black Sea which had earlier

been established at the Paris Conference of 1856; conferences met in Berlin in

1884 and 1885 to attempt to regulate the “Scramble for Africa” which led to

commercial rivalry and political antagonism between the European powers. The

Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 were an effort to secure, on a multilateral

basis, agreement on different aspects of the law relating to the conduct of warfare

on land and on the sea, and on the duties of neutral states.

The major breakthrough for international organization, however, would be the year

1919 and the Versailles peace Settlement which followed the First World War. On

8 January 1918, US president Woodrow Wilson made his famous ‘fourteen points’

Speech, in which he called for the creation of a “general association of nations”.

Under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of

political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

Wilson’s plea was carried on the waves of public opium in many states and would

lead to the formation of the League of Nations. And not only that: the international

Labor Organization was also established at the 1919 peace Conference.

The League of Nations was the first international organization which aims to

guarantee peace and the establishment of a system of collective security, following

which an attack against one of the member-states of the League would give the rest

the right to come to the attacked state’s rescue.

The evolution of international organizations, in the modern sense of this term, can

be divided into three phrases. The first phase started with the Congress of Vienna

(1814–15), which set in motion a series of innovations, inventions, and learning

processes, shaping the core of what we now call IOs.

The second phase of international organization in the nineteenth century is

characterized by the building of permanent institutions. This is reflected in the new

and dominant term “union” for organization. The term “public international union”

(PIU) became the overarching term for the by intergovernmental organizations

(IGOs) of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. PIUs have been

regarded as “early IGOs” which later transformed into specialized agencies of the

UN system, with their subdivisions as institutional prototypes for the League of

Nations and the UN.

The third phase of international organization is the continued existence of IOs

during the first half of the twentieth century.

History and genesis of international organizations – key historical periods and organizational specifics of international entities