4.4 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)

Born 1985 (Dhaka — the Charter); the Secretariat in Kathmandu (the Nepal privilege).Composition: the eight members — Afghanistan (2007's admission), Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Organs: the Summit (the heads of state/government — the supreme organ), the Council of Ministers (the foreign ministers), the Standing Committee (the foreign secretaries), the Technical Committees' family, the Secretariat (the Secretary- General's Kathmandu office), the regional centres' network. Functions: the ** Charter's agenda (welfare, growth, collective self-reliance, mutual trust), the trade faces — SAPTA'spreferences and SAFTA (2004/2006's free-trade area — the sensitive-lists reality), the social faces (the SAARC Food Bank, the development fund — the SDF), the conventions (terrorism, narcotics, trafficking, child welfare — the security-adjacent cooperation),the South Asian University (New Delhi — the knowledge face). The structural limits (the exam's critical eye): the Charter's Article X — bilateral and contentious issues excludedfrom the multilateral deliberations (the India-Pakistan wall — the raison d'etre and theceiling at once); the unanimity rule; the asymmetry of the India-centric geography; thesummit paralysis of the recent decade (the 2014 Kathmandu Summit the last held —the subsequent summits' postponement politics). Nepal's place:** the founder; the Secretariat's host; the Zone of Peace's history (PIL-II, Semester 4); the founding father's memory (the late King Birendra's regional-vision speeches — the association's Nepali pedigree).