Legal Aspects of International Organizations – serie

As was true for previous editions of this book, the present edition offers the non-specialist reader: the politician, diplomat, journalist or student of international law and relations – a guide and introduction to the International Court of Justice; what it is and how it works.The step by step explanation of how a case is tried is still based on the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua case, due to the fact that virtually every procedural situation that exists played a role in that case, as well as to the continuing influence of that case on the role of the Court.However, much has happened since the last edition appeared in 1995. The Court has experienced the most active period in its history, and this new edition takes full account of the Court’s activities and efforts to adapt itself to the new requirements and challenges of the present century.

Since 1945, the United Nations has had an internal justice system to handle internal disputes and examine employee conformity with its rules of governance. Based on an exhaustive analysis of 3,067 judgements, advisory opinions, and General Assembly debates on the issue, The Internal Justice of the United Nations offers an unparalleled account of the system’s effectiveness and shortcomings over its seventy year history.

International organizations are typically intergovernmental in nature and endowed with a bipolar institutional structure where organs of States are usually juxtaposed with the Secretariat. On these premises, in Non-Governmental Interests in Regional Organizations: The Role of Parliamentary, Socio-Economic and Territorial Institutions Elisa Tino aims at analysing the unexplored phenomenon of institutional multipolarism of regional organizations, namely the trend to establish institutions representing non-governmental interests. Particularly, illustrating their diffusion in various geographic areas, explaining rationales underlying their establishment and investigating their institutional aspects, Elisa Tino pinpoints the contribution of these institutions to the development of regional organizations both according to the functionalist approach and the constitutionalist one. Thus, she aims at providing food for thought in the study of international organizations.

In 1999, the Alliance mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Around the same period, allegations were made regarding its involvement in human trafficking and forced prostitution in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A decade later, NATO airplanes hit a fuel truck causing significant civilian casualties in Kunduz, Afghanistan. After more than 60 years of existence and a track-record of more than 30 missions performed worldwide, it is surprising that there is still uncertainty on the scope and content of NATO’s responsibility for wrongful conduct during its military operations. This timely book deals with the international responsibility of NATO during military operations. It examines, the status of the Alliance, the existence of international obligations and conditions of attribution of conduct in NATO.

Reform discourse about the United Nations Security Council gives every reason to believe that flaws in its legal and institutional design prevent the Council from adequately meeting its responsibility to maintain or restore international peace and security - in part by allowing the Council to act in an ad hoc and unprincipled manner. In Towards a more accountable United Nations Security Council, Carolyn Evans argues that enhanced accountability of the Council, and corresponding evolution of practice, are feasible, salutary changes towards the Council better answering its raison d'être. Discussion proceeds by probing the why, to whom, for what, and how, of Council accountability - four corners of concerns central to seeing any actor held accountable.

This book is the first treatise in English to present an overall functional necessity approach to the study of the legal position of intergovernmental organizations. According to this approach, an international organization is entitled to (no more than) what is necessary for the exercise of its functions in the fulfillment of its purposes. The book embodies a three-step analysis that links an organization's legal status (personality/ capacity/powers) and immunities to the functions and purposes of the organization. The book also reviews existing methods of counterbalancing organizational immunities and includes the International Tin Council litigation as a case study.With a Foreword by Sir Robert Jennings.“It is a book which deserves a place in specialized international law collections, and certainly on the shelves of anyone, be they a government or private party, who has any legal dealings with international organizations.” —Maurice Mendelson, Book Review, XXIII(4) Law Books in Review 159 (1996)