1.4 Role and Importance of International Institutions

Peace and security: the collective-security architecture (the Security Council's Chapter VII machinery; the peacekeeping instrument) — the League's lesson institutionalized; Cooperation and standard-setting: the treaty-drafting platforms and the technical codes (labour, health, aviation, trade, telecommunications) — the world's regulatory quietly done by institutions; Dispute settlement: the courts and tribunals (the ICJ; the WTO's appellate system) — law's substitute for force; Development and welfare: the financing institutions (the Bank/Fund family; the ADB) and the programmes (UNDP, FAO, WHO) — the development decades to the SDGs; Human rights: the standard-setting and monitoring machinery (Part Two of this course) — from the UDHR to the treaty bodies; Humanitarian action and crisis response: the refugees' regime (UNHCR), the emergency relief, the pandemic law (WHO's IHR); The forum function: the permanent conference where the world talks — the dialogue's institutionalization itself a peace structure. The critical eye (the balanced essay): the sovereignty constraint (the members' consent everywhere), the veto and consensus paralyses, the democratic-deficit and accountability debates, the funding politics — the institutions' importance is precisely why their weaknesses matter. Exam Focus Long questions: (i) Define international institution — the four notes + the sources-of- law six-map; (ii) Legal personality — Reparations (1949), objective personality, the derived-and-functional character, the consequences (treaties, immunities, responsibility); (iii) The classification table — placing the UN, EU, SAARC and IMF on every axis; (iv) Role and importance with the critical eye. Short questions: constituent treaty; functional necessity; supranationalism; the Reparations opinion. Trick areas: (i) The IO's powers are CONFERRED — no implied super-powers beyond the purposes' functions; (ii) Objective personality is opposable to non-members — do not say personality binds only members; (iii) The EU is the supranational exception — almost everything else is intergovernmental.