Towards More Effective Supervision By International Organizations Essays In Honour Of Henry G Schermers

This volume is a collection of essays dealing primarily with supervision by international organizations of, on the one hand, state behaviour and, on the other, the conduct of the organizations themselves. The first is termed external supervision, the second internal supervision. An extensive range of international organizations is covered, among them the ILO, the IMF, GATT and the United Nations.

This monograph provides an extensive analysis of the powers of judicial review exercised by the International Court of Justice with respect to judgments of the Administrative Tribunals of the International Labour Organization and the United Nations. The grounds on which these judgments can be challenged include excess jurisdiction, procedural errors and errors of law relative to the Charter of the United Nations. The system, however, suffers from a number of difficulties, including lack of procedural equality, the propriety of employing the Court's advisory jurisdiction in employer-employee disputes, and the nature of the activities of the Review Committee of the General Assembly. These problems are examined with a view to shedding light on the nature, scope and extent of the Court's powers of judicial review. The main study is preceded by an exhaustive survey of the genesis of the review system established by the Statutes of these Tribunals. Included also in this volume is an account of the informal and rudimentary judicial review arrangement the Court enjoys by way of its advisory and contentious jurisdiction with respect to institutional action other than that of UNAT and ILOAT judgments. When in 1995 the General Assembly abolished the UNAT review system, various considerations were in the forefront: a detailed survey of which is provided in the penultimate part of the book. Several significant themes are explored in the concluding chapter. These include issues dealing with the motivation for establishing the review system, the divisions within the Court and possible reform, as opposed to abolition, of the system.

This book offers a comparative analysis of the institutional law of public international organizations, covering issues such as membership, institutional structure, decisions and decision-making, legal status, privileges and immunities. It has been designed to appeal to both academics and practitioners.

The proliferation of international organizations is presently a hot issue. New international organizations have been created over the last few years, such as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the World Trade Organization. At the same time a certain reluctance may be observed to create new organizations. Overlapping activities and conflicting competences occur frequently and the need for coordination is evident. The events in former Yugoslavia are an example. Both during the armed conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo and afterwards in the era of reconstruction, the need to coordinate the work of organizations such as the UN, NATO, the EU, the World Bank, OSCE, and the Council of Europe was vital. Against this background a number of legal issues have become more important that have not yet been researched extensively, perhaps the only exception being the proliferation of international tribunals. Questions include the following: Why were new organizations created while others already existed in the same or a related field? What specific legal problems have arisen that are related to the coexistence of different organizations working (partly) in the same area? What mechanisms or instruments have been developed to coordinate the activities and to solve legal problems? These and other questions were discussed during a conference that took place from 18 to 20 November, 1999, in the Academy Building of Leiden University, The Netherlands. A large number of experts, both academics and practitioners, participated. The purpose of this book is to present the issues discussed during the Leiden conference to a larger audience. This book contains the adapted papers for the conference and several other contributions.

Since 1945 there has been a tremendous growth in the number of international organizations, leading to the development of a body of law regulating the relationship between the organizations and their host states. International Organizations and their Host States examines the relationship from a practical perspective. Before examining the legal status, privileges and immunities that have commonly been granted to international organizations, the diverse sources where the law can be found are brought together in a new concept: the host arrangement. This concept forms an anchor for the examination of the following aspects of the legal relationship: the legal personality of the organization, the status of its seat, the inviolability of its premises, assets and archives, its jurisdictional immunity, its communications privileges, and its fiscal, customs and financial privileges. In conclusion, the legal concepts underlying the relationship between international organizations and their host states are analyzed and suggestions are made on improving the coherency of the law.

This book analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, development and potential of the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, providing new insights on the role of public international law in a field as politicized as that of nuclear arms control.