Reform Of The International Institutions

The book explores how international organizations (IOs) have expanded their powers over time without formally amending their founding treaties. IOs intervene in military, financial, economic, political, social, and cultural affairs, and increasingly take on roles not explicitly assigned to them by law. The proposed book will contend that this 'mission creep' has allowed IOs to intervene internationally, most often in the Global South, in a way that has allowed them to recast institutions within and interactions among states, societies, and peoples on a broadly Western, liberal model. Adopting a historical and interdisciplinary, socio-legal approach, it supports this claim through detailed investigations of historical episodes involving three very different organizations: the International Labour Organization in the interwar period; the United Nations in the two decades following the Second World War; and the World Bank from the 1950s through to the 1990s. The book draws on a wide range of original institutional and archival materials, bringing to light little-known aspects of each organization's activities, identifying continuities in the ideas and practices of international governance across the twentieth century, and speaking to a range of pressing theoretical questions in present-day international law and international relations --Front flap of the book.

At no time since the creation of the IMF and World Bank, (and later of the WTO) has it been a more opportune time to examine the work, reform and future of the international monetary and trading systems. This text provides an assessment of these institutions from both an American and European perspective.

There is now considerable unanimity that international organizations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization (WTO), Bretton Woods Institutions and the international economic architecture need to be reformed in order to achieve greater democratic governance to tackle the myriad of challenges facing the world. Written by leading members of the international community under the auspices of the World Forum of Civil Society Networks - UBUNTU, this book provides a diverse and rich resource on all aspects of the reform of international organizations. The book introduces the reader to the main organizations of the international multilateral system, presents proposals for reform and provides an analysis of the political action required to achieve global democratic governance.

The current international system of institutions and governance groups is proving inadequate to meet many of today's most important challenges, such as terrorism, poverty, nuclear proliferation, financial integration, and climate change. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and UN were founded after World War II, and their structures of voting power and representation have become obsolete, no longer reflecting today's balance of economic and political power. This insightful book examines how to make such institutions more responsive and effective. Institutional reform is critically needed but currently in stalemate. A new push is needed from powerful nations acting together through a reformed and enlarged G-8 that includes emerging economies, such as China and India. Global challenges demand integrated approaches, with greater coordination among international institutions. Global Governance Reform argues that without reconstituting the Group of 8 summit into a larger, more representative group of leaders, with a new mandate to provide strategic guidance to the system of international institutions, the world will fall further behind in addressing global challenges. The path to global reform is defined by the need to act in coordinated ways on summit and institutional reform, and this book lights the way.

This title investigates the effects of reform programmes on international organisations (IOs). Such reforms are often perceived as failing but they do nevertheless drive organisational change. The book argues that reforms trigger path dependent processes in IOs, yielding increasing returns to the winners of historical bargains. Path dependence explains why a seemingly dysfunctional organisational process, namely fragmentation, is hard to reverse but easy to reinforce through organisational reform.

As wildfires rage, pollution thickens, and species disappear, the world confronts environmental crisis with a set of global institutions in urgent need of reform. Yet, these institutions have proved frustratingly resistant to change. Introducing the concept of Temporal Focal Points, Manulak shows how change occurs in world politics. By re-envisioning the role of timing and temporality in social relations, his analysis presents a new approach to understanding transformative phases in international cooperation. We may now be entering such a phase, he argues, and global actors must be ready to realize the opportunities presented. Charting the often colorful and intensely political history of change in global environmental politics, this book sheds new light on the actors and institutions that shape humanity's response to planetary decline. It will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of international relations, international organization and environmental politics and history.