Some Legal Aspects of International Organizations

The sphere of competence of international organizations

International organizations are created by States to serve concrete Purposes and tasks. They are accordingly given a strictly specified competence that is recorded in their constituent instrument.

Activities of an organization are lawful when they fall within its sphere of competence. The competence of an international organization is expressed in that of its organs. Two aspects of competence of international organizations and of their organs should be distinguished, namely, their object competence, which determines the range of issues falling within their competence, and their jurisdictional competence, which determines the legal force of their acts with respect to individual issues within its object competence.

Since the constituent instrument of an international organization which forms the basis for its sphere of competence, is an international treaty, any change in its competence, or the redistribution of that competence among its organs must take place on the basis of a treaty in accordance with corresponding rules provided for in the constituent instrument.

Resolutions of international organizations

The resolutions of organs of international organizations usually fall into two types, depending on whether or not they are mandatory: binding decisions and recommendations.

Decisions are taken on issues relating to an organization's internal activities, such as the adoption of rules of procedure, the approval of the budget and the distribution of expenditure among the members, admission to membership, expulsion from membership, and elections to its bodies, etc. In all international organizations decisions on organizational issues are binding on all member-states.

As for resolutions on matters concerning the substance of an organization's activities, they are generally recommendations. For example, in accordance with Article 10 of the United Nations Charter, resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly are recommendations. This does not, of course, affect the political and moral force on General Assembly resolutions.

Functions of International Organizations

It is important to distinguish between such concepts as the purl poses, tasks and functions of international organizations.

The purposes of international organizations differ. The United Nations was created to maintain international peace and security; ICAO - to study problems of international civil aviation, elaborate international norms and rules for civil aviation, and contribute to the safety of flights on international airlines; and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) - to provide international protection of copyright, etc. The concrete tasks that follow from such purposes are carried out by international organizations through specific actions whose aggregate constitutes the functions of these international or­ganizations. They include information, norm-creating, control and operational functions.

The information function is one of the oldest functions of international organizations. It has two aspects: first, each organization publishes a series of documents relating directly to its structure, purposes and basic lines of its activity; second, it publishes special materials, such as papers, surveys and abstracts on matters with which it is concerned.

The norm-creating function has two meanings: 1) the direct participation by an international organization in the creation of norms of international law, 2) the participation by an international organization in the norm-creation process of States. Today the participation by international organizations in the norm-creating process of States is widespread. Many intergovernmental organizations of the United Nations system are engaged in this type of norm creation.

The control function has developed considerably after the Second World War. There are many international legal acts - charters, multi­lateral conventions, pacts, covenants - establishing various forms of control over the implementation of the norms contained in these documents, and also providing for the creation of special organs to exercise this control.

The operational function is a new function of international organizations, and one that is a particular characteristic of the United Nations and specialized agencies. The operational functions of the United Nations include United Nations operations in maintaining international peace and security; the provision of technical assistance by the United Nations and specialized agencies to newly-independent, developing States, etc.

A specific characteristic of the operational function of an international organization compared with other functions, is that the latter include measures intended to induce States to promote its objectives by exerting on them a certain political pressure, while in performing operational functions it itself pursues its own objectives, mainly with the help of manpower and material resources at its own disposal. The appearance of international organizations, such as INMARSAT and INTELSAT, possessing specific commercial-operational functions, indicates that the operational function of international organizations is developing.

All functions of international organizations must be performed in accordance with their charters.