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Klabbers, Jan --- "Contending Approaches to International Organizations: Between Functionalism and Constitutionalism" [2011] ELECD 517; in Klabbers, Jan; Wallendahl, Åsa (eds), "Research Handbook on the Law of International Organizations" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Law of International Organizations

Editor(s): Klabbers, Jan; Wallendahl, Åsa

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201355

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Contending Approaches to International Organizations: Between Functionalism and Constitutionalism

Author(s): Klabbers, Jan

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

1 Contending approaches to international
organizations: Between functionalism and
constitutionalism1
Jan Klabbers



INTRODUCTION

International organizations make headlines pretty much every day. Sometimes
they do so in a positive sense, earning praise for their work, but increasingly,
it seems, some of those headlines are negative: at least some of their activities
are seen as controversial. UN peacekeepers, e.g., have been accused of human
rights violations, of organizing prostitution rings, and other sordid activities,
and the UN has been criticized both for doing nothing (think Rwanda, think
Srebrenica) and, often enough, for doing too much (think of the Security
Council adopting a legislative role). The World Bank regularly is condemned
for failing to pay attention to the effects of its policies on the human rights of
people; much the same applies to the external relations of the European Union
which, while waving the banner of human rights and democracy, are seen by
many as imposing standards on poorer nations. The United Nations High
Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) engages in repatriations of people,
voluntary or not-quite-so-voluntary, and runs the risk of going astray when
determining the status of refugees. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is
often accused of sacrificing environmental considerations, labour standards,
and principles of human rights on the altar of free global trade, and most
disturbing of all perhaps, the United Nations Sanctions Committees are some-
times seen as violating human rights in the war on terror which, perhaps iron-
ically, is itself often justified in the ...