POL 322 LESSON NOTE

 POL 322 International Organizations (2 Credits) C 

Historical overview of International Organization (The League of Nations)

The League of Nations was the first permanent early international Organization that lasted for some years. The first meeting of the League of Nations was held in 1920 at Geneva in Switzerland. It was created by the Versailles and other peace treaties ending World War I. The upbraided nationalism that had inflamed Europe in the early 20th century was widely seen as a major cause of World War I. The horrendous losses in the War convinced many Europeans that there must never be another war.

 A League of Nations proposed by the 28th US president (1856 - 1924) Woodrow Wilson who served in office from 1913 to 1921 and lead America through World War 1(1914 - 1918) was seen as a way of preventing war in the future through a system of collective security. The League was a culmination of other political thinkers who had late the intellectual background; men like the duke de Sully and Immaniuel Kant. The League failed in the face of Fascism (a RIGHT WING political system in which people’s lives were completely controlled by the state and no political opposition is allowed to air their views on it was used in Germany and Italy in the 1930s and 40s). Its successor was the United Nations (UN)

Original Members of the League of Nations - January 10, 1920

Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, el Salvador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Netherlands, New Zealand Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Persia, Peru Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Siam, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, United Kingdom, Uruguay Venezuela, Yugoslavia (40 members).

If we take a look at the original members of the League of Nations, from the data above we see how their down fall began by some members pulling out, the annexed of Albania by Italy and the expelling of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Their failure started from 1933 - 1942 and finally seized to exist after the world war 11 in 1939 - 45. Also the United states that are among the world powers are not part of the League of Nation.

Article 11 of the League’s Covenant stated:

‘‘Any war of threat of war is a matter of concern to the whole league and the league shall take action that may safeguard peace’’

Therefore, any conflict between nations which ended in war and the victor of one over the other must be considered as the League failure.

Successes of the League of Nations

The League settled various cases that were tabled before them.

v  First they quickly proved its value by settling the Swedish-Finnish dispute over the Åland Islands (1920–21),

v  guaranteeing the security of Albania (1921),

v  rescuing Austria from economic disaster,

v  settling the division of Upper Silesia (1922),

v  and preventing the outbreak of war in the Balkans between Greece and Bulgaria (1925). In addition,

v  the League extended considerable aid to refugees; it helped to suppress white slave and opium traffic;

v   it did pioneering work in surveys of health; it extended financial aid to the needy states; and it furthered international cooperation in labor relations and many other fields.

 Failures of the League of Nations

The problem of bringing its political influence to bear, especially on the great powers, soon made itself felt.

v  This was when their failures started by Poland refusing  to abide by the League decision in the Vilnius dispute, and the League was forced to stand by powerlessly in the face of the French occupation of the Ruhr (1923) and Italy's occupation of Kérkira (1923).

v   Failure to take action over the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931) was a blow to the League's prestige, especially when followed by Japan's withdrawal from the League (1933).

v  Another serious failure was the inability of the League to stop the Chaco War (1932–35) between Bolivia and Paraguay. In 1935 the League completed its successful 15-year administration of the Saar territory by conducting a plebiscite under the supervision of an international military force.

v   But even this success was not sufficient to offset the failure of the Disarmament Conference that lead to the, Germany's withdrawal from the League (1933),

v  and Italy's successful attack on Ethiopia in defiance of the League's economic sanctions (1935).

v   In 1936, Adolf Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland and denounced the Treaty of Versailles; in 1938 he seized Austria.

v  The league was faced by threats to international peace from all sides; the Spanish civil war,

v  Japan's resumption of war against China (1937),

v  and finally the appeasement of Hitler at Munich (1938) and finally the League collapsed. German’s claims on Danzig, where the League commissioner had been reduced to impotence, led to the outbreak of World War II.

 

The last important act of the League came in Dec., 1939, when it expelled the USSR for its attack on Finland. In 1940 the League secretariat in Geneva was reduced to a skeleton staff; some of the technical services were removed to the United States and Canada. The allied International Labor Organization continued to function and eventually became affiliated with the United Nations. In 1946 the League dissolved itself, and its services and real estate (notably the Palais des Nations in Geneva) were transferred to the United Nations. The League's chief success lay in providing the first pattern of permanent international organization, a pattern on which much of the United Nations was modeled. Its failures were due as much to the indifference of the great powers, which preferred to reserve important matters for their own decisions, as to weaknesses of the organization.

Role of international Organizations

There are limitations of their mem­bers and in re­la­tion to their ge­o­graph­i­cal spheres of ac­tiv­ities (e.g. Organization of Amer­i­can States) or strive for global par­tic­i­pa­tion (e.g. In­ter­na­tional Tele­graph Union). They can de­vote them­selves to a spe­cific field of ac­tion (e.g. OPEC) or ad­dress a broad range of top­ics (e.g. United Na­tions).International Governmental Organization is characterized by reg­u­lar gen­eral As­sem­blies and ple­nary ses­sions, a per­ma­nent sec­re­tariat and an iden­ti­fi­able head­quar­ters. IGOs are usu­ally headed by lead­ers whose ti­tles can vary con­sid­er­ably (Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral of the United Na­tions, Di­rec­tor-Gen­eral of the World Health Organization, Pres­i­dent of the World Bank, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of the In­ter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund, etc.). It is of great im­por­tance that the as­signed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the mem­ber states and es­pe­cially the staff of the per­ma­nent sec­re­tariat of an IGO are ex­clu­sively com­mit­ted to the in­ter­ests of the mem­ber states.

Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) are more than in­stru­ments of co-op­er­at­ing na­tion states; they de­velop their own in­sti­tu­tional logic and pro­ce­dures and pur­sue their own in­ter­ests in re­gard to their organizational goal. The term "in­ter­na­tional organization", how­ever, goes be­yond the var­i­ous forms of in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal co­op­er­a­tion and also des­ig­nates pri­vate organizational forms of transna­tional groups and as­so­ci­a­tions. In some cases, INGOs are fore­run­ners of IGOs, for ex­am­ple the In­ter­na­tional As­so­ci­a­tion of the Legal Pro­tec­tion of Labour, whose ac­tiv­i­ties were the basis for the ILO, founded in 1919. Above all, how­ever, INGOs are never com­pletely free from gov­ern­mental in­flu­ence. They have to pur­sue their ac­tiv­i­ties within the scope of a le­git­i­mate legal gov­ern­men­tal frame­work and are in many cases ac­tive in areas (health, pro­tec­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment, etc.) that are ul­ti­mately leg­is­lated by the state alone.

They differ in function, of membership and membership criteria. They have various goals and scopes, often outlined in the treaty or charter. Some IGOs developed to fulfil a need for a neutral forum for debate or negotiation to resolve disputes. Others developed to carry out mutual interests with unified aims to preserve peace through conflict resolution and better international relations, promote international cooperation on matters such as environmental protection, to promote human rights, to promote social development (education, health care), to render human they, in­ter­na­tional com­mu­ni­ca­tions, sci­en­tific co­op­er­a­tion, labour organizations, eco­nomic co­op­er­a­tion, the in­ter­na­tional food regime, Internal aid, and the economic development, as­sist­ing refugees and dis­placed per­sons as well as is­sues of in­ter­na­tional law. Some are more general in scope like the United Nations while others may have subject-specific missions (such as Interpol or the International Organization for Standardization and other standards organizations).

Expansion and growth

Presently there are more than 6,743 International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) worldwide, and this number continues to rise daily. The increase is attributed to globalization, which increases and encourages the cooperation among and within states. Globalization has provided easier means for International Governmental Organizational (IGO) growth, as a result of increased international relations. As they continued to expand it was observed that they went extra mile to grow economically, politically, militarily, as well as on the domestic level.

 Economically, IGOs benefit material and non-material resources for economic growth. International Governmental Organizations also provide more political stability among the state that was concerned. Meanwhile Military alliances were formed by establishing common standards in order to ensure security of the members to ward off outside threats. With the formation of IGOs it has encouraged autocratic states to develop into democracies in order to form an effective and internal government.

 Participation and involvement

Several reasons may ginger states to become a member of International Governmental Organization (IGOs) likewise other reasons may disqualify them to become a member. These reasons are stated below.

Reasons for membership participation

1. Economic rewards: In the case of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), many different countries receive economic benefits from membership in the free trade agreement. For example, Mexican companies are given better access to U.S. markets due to their membership.
2. Political influence: Smaller countries, such as Portugal and the Netherlands, who do not carry much political clout on the international stage, are given a substantial increase in influence through membership in IGOs, such as the European Union. Also for countries with more influence such as France and Germany they are beneficial as the nation increases influence in the smaller countries' internal affairs and expanding other nations dependence on themselves, so to preserve allegiance
3. Security: Membership in an IGO such as NATO gives security benefits to member countries. This provides an avenue where political differences can be resolved.
4. To improve on the survival of democracy: It has been noted that member countries experience a greater degree of democracy and those democracies

Reasons for Rejecting Membership

1. Loss of sovereignty: Membership often comes with a loss of state sovereignty as treaties are signed which require cooperation on the part of all member states.
2. Insufficient benefits: Often membership does not bring about substantial enough benefits to warrant membership in the organization.

Strengths of IGOs

1. They hold state authority.
2. Their institutions are permanent.
3. They provide a forum for discussion.
4. They are issue specific.
5. They provide information.
6. They allow multilateral co operations.

Weaknesses:

Membership is limited, prohibits the membership of private citizens. This makes IGOs undemocratic. In addition, not all IGOs allow universal membership.

IGOs often overlap resulting in a complex network.

1. States have to give up part of their sovereignty, which weakens the state's ability to assert its authority.
2. Inequality among state members creates biases and can lead powerful states to misuse their power on the weak states.

They can be deemed unfair as countries with a higher percentage voting power have the right to veto any decision that is not in their favor, leaving the smaller countries powerless.

e United Nations

The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization that aims to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations.

The United Nations officially came into existence (October 24, 1945) The Charter was signed by the representatives of the 50 countries (June 26, 1945). Poland was not represented at the Conference, but signed it later and became one of the original 51 Member States. That was when the Charter had been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States and by a majority of other signatories. The great powers (Britain, China, France, Soviet Union, and the United states) were given veto power in the Security Council. The Soviets wanted a vote in the General Assembly for each of its 16 constituent republics.

The work of the United Nations reaches every corner of the globe. They are well known for peacekeeping, peace building, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance, there are many other ways the United Nations and its System (specialized agencies, funds and programmes) affect our lives and make the world a better place. The Organization works on a broad range of fundamental issues, from sustainable development, environment and refugees protection, disaster relief, counter terrorism, disarmament and non-proliferation, to promoting democracy, human rights, gender equality and the advancement of women, governance, economic and social development and international health, clearing landmines, expanding food production, and more, in order to achieve its goals and coordinate efforts for a safer world for this and future generations.

The UN has 4 main purposes

• To keep peace throughout the world;
• To develop friendly relations among nations;
• To help nations work together to improve the lives of poor people, to conquer hunger, disease and illiteracy, and to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms;
• To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations to achieve their goals https://www.un.org/un70/en/content/history/index.html

Current members

Permanent and non - Permanent Members

The Council is composed of 15 Members:

Five permanent members: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and ten non-permanent members are elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly (with end of term year):

·         Belgium (2020)

·         Dominican Republic (2020)

·         Estonia (2021)

·         Germany (2020)

·         Indonesia (2020)

·         Niger (2021)

·         Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (2021)

·         South Africa (2020)

·         Tunisia (2021)

·         Viet Nam (2021)

 

Non – Council Members

 

More than 50 United Nations Member States have never been Members of the Security Council.

Any State which is a Member of the United Nations but not of the Security Council may participate, without a vote, in its discussions when the Council considers that country's interests are affected. Both Members and non-members of the United Nations, if they are parties to a dispute being considered by the Council, may be invited to take part, without a vote, in the Council's discussions; the Council sets the conditions for participation by a non-member State.

Security Council Members 

Main Organs of UN

The main organs of the UN are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Secretariat. 

General Assembly

The General Assembly is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. All 193 Member States of the UN are represented in the General Assembly, making it the only UN body with universal representation.  Each year, in September, the full UN membership meets in the General Assembly Hall in New York for the annual General Assembly session, and general debate, which many heads of state attend and address. Decisions on important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly. Decisions on other questions are by simple majority.  The General Assembly, each year, elects a GA President to serve a one-year term of office.

Security Council

The Security Council has primary responsibility, under the UN Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security.  It has 15 Members (5 permanent and 10 non-permanent members). Each Member has one vote. Under the Charter, all Member States are obligated to comply with Council decisions. The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression. It calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommends methods of adjustment or terms of settlement. In some cases, the Security Council can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorize the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security.  The Security Council has a Presidency, which rotates, and changes, every month.

Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council is the principal body for coordination, policy review, policy dialogue and recommendations on economic, social and environmental issues, as well as implementation of internationally agreed development goals. It serves as the central mechanism for activities of the UN system and its specialized agencies in the economic, social and environmental fields, supervising subsidiary and expert bodies.  It has 54 Members, elected by the General Assembly for overlapping three-year terms. It is the United Nations’ central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development.

Trusteeship Council

The Trusteeship Council was established in 1945 by the UN Charter, under Chapter XIII, to provide international supervision for 11 Trust Territories that had been placed under the administration of seven Member States, and ensure that adequate steps were taken to prepare the Territories for self-government and independence. By 1994, all Trust Territories had attained self-government or independence.  The Trusteeship Council suspended operation on 1 November 1994. By a resolution adopted on 25 May 1994, the Council amended its rules of procedure to drop the obligation to meet annually and agreed to meet as occasion required -- by its decision or the decision of its President, or at the request of a majority of its members or the General Assembly or the Security Council.

International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Its seat is at the Peace Palace in the Hague (Netherlands). It is the only one of the six principal organs of the United Nations not located in New York (United States of America). The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.

Secretariat

The Secretariat comprises the Secretary-General and tens of thousands of international UN staff members who carry out the day-to-day work of the UN as mandated by the General Assembly and the Organization's other principal organs.  The Secretary-General is chief administrative officer of the Organization, appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council for a five-year, renewable term. UN staff members are recruited internationally and locally, and work in duty stations and on peacekeeping missions all around the world.  But serving the cause of peace in a violent world is a dangerous occupation. Since the founding of the United Nations, hundreds of brave men and women have given their lives in its service.

 ECOWAS

The economic Community of West African States was established by the Treaty of Lagos signed by fifteen West African Heads of State and Government in May 28 1975. The treaty of Lagos was initially limited to economic cooperation but emerging political events led to its revision and expansion of scope of cooperation in 1993. Cabo Verde joined in 1976 and Mauritania decided to withdraw in 2000 to join the Arab Maghreb Union. The vision of ECOWAS is to its revision and expansion of scope of cooperation and integration, leading to the establishment of an Economic Union in West Africa in order to raise the living standards of its peoples, to maintain and enhance economic stability, foster relations among member States as well as contribute to the progress and development of the African Continent. The Revised Treaty of ECOWAS states the objectives as follows:

§  the harmonization and co-ordination of national policies and the promotion of integration programmes, projects and activities, particularly in food, agriculture and natural resources, industry, transport and communications, energy, trade, money and finance, taxation, economic reform policies, human resources, education, information, culture, science, technology, services, health, tourism, legal matters;

 

§  the harmonization and co-ordination of policies for the protection of the environment;

 

§  the promotion of the establishment of joint production enterprises;

 

§  the establishment of a common market;

 

§  the establishment of an economic union through the adoption of common policies in the economic, financial, social and cultural sectors, and the creation of monetary union.

 

§  The promotion of joint ventures by private sector enterprises and other economic operators, in particular through the adoption of a regional agreement on cross border investments;

 

§  The adoption of measures for the integration of the private sectors, particularly the creation of an enabling environment to promote small and medium scale enterprises;

 

§  The establishment of an enabling legal environment;

 

§  The harmonization of national investment codes leading to the adoption of a single community investment code;

 

§  The harmonization of standards and measures;

 

§  The promotion of balanced development of the region, paying attention to the special problems of each member state particularly those of landlocked and small island member States;

 

§  The encouragement and strengthening of relations and the promotion of the flow of information particularly among rural populations, women and youth organizations and socio-professional organizations such as associations of the media, business men and women, workers, and trade unions;

 

§  The adoption of a community population policy which takes into account the need for a balance between demographic factors and socio-economic development.

 

§  Any other activity that member states may decide to undertake jointly with a view to attaining community objectives.

 

§  The organizational structure of ECOWAS consists of the following institutions and specialized agencies:

 

Institutions:

§  The Authority of Heads of State and Government;

§  The Council of Ministers;

§  The Community Parliament;

§  The Economic and Social Council;

§  The Community of Court of Justice;

§  The ECOWAS Commission;

§  The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID);

§  The West African Health Organization

§  The inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing in West Africa (GIABA).

 

Specialized Agencies:

§  West African Monetary Agency (WAMA)

 

§  Regional Agency for Agriculture and Food (RAAF)

 

§  ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA)

 

§  ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Efficiency (ECREEE)

 

§  The West African Power Pool (WAPP) ECOWAS BROWN CARD

 

§  ECOWAS Gender Development  Centre (EGDC)

 

§  ECOWAS Youth and Sports Development Centre (EYSDC)

 

§  West African Monetary Institute (WAMI)

 

§  ECOWAS infrastructure Projects Preparation and Development Unit (PPDU)

 

§  The member States of ECOWAS are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. https://www.uneca.org/oria/pages/ecowas-economic-community-west-african-states