6 Immunity and Privileges of International Organizations

The functional necessity of the institutional world:1. The UN family: the UN Charter, Article 105 — the Organization "shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the attainment of its purposes," implemented by the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of theUnited Nations (1946) (and the 1947 Specialized Agencies Convention): premises, archives and assets inviolable; exemption from tax and currency controls; legal process immunity for the organization; officials' official-act immunity; the Secretary-General and senior officials' full diplomatic-grade immunity; experts on mission (the Mazilu line) and peacekeepers' status- of-forces agreements;2. Headquarter agreements (the UN–US Headquarters Agreement's disputes — the PLO mission episode) and host-state law's interplay;3. The specialized agencies, the Bretton Woods institutions' special stature, and theWTO's milder regime;4. The ICJ and PCA — judges' full immunities; and the ICC's agreement-based immunities;5. The functional logic's limit — the accountability debate (the organizations claiming immunity while operating aid and peace programmes: the cholera litigation against the UN (Haiti — the absolute-immunity bar and the moral-political settlement); the "immunity vs. remedies" tension — the same debate as diplomatic immunity's abuse cases, now institutional).