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Wessel, Ramses A. --- "Dissolution and Succession: The Transmigration of the Soul of International Organizations" [2011] ELECD 529; 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 13

Section Title: Dissolution and Succession: The Transmigration of the Soul of International Organizations

Author(s): Wessel, Ramses A.

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

13 Dissolution and succession:
The transmigration of the soul of
international organizations
Ramses A. Wessel



SOUL SEARCHING
Perhaps the ultimate question to judge the autonomous existence of interna-
tional organizations is whether member states can simply dissolve an interna-
tional organization ­ or replace it by another one ­ once its services are no
longer considered necessary. From the perspective of states creating interna-
tional organizations to perform certain functions they cannot or do not wish to
perform themselves, one would argue that organizations are primarily tools in
the hands of their member states; and, once no longer needed or appropriate,
tools obviously lose their relevance. In fact, it is this approach that would seem
to have been dominant during most of the life and times of international orga-
nizations (Klabbers, Chapter 1 of this book, and 2005a: 151­181). After all,
since the attribution of powers principle remains at the heart of our under-
standing of international organizations, the latter must wait for whatever table
scraps national governments decide to leave them, if they do at all.
It would be too easy to contend that the alternative, constitutional, perspec-
tive would focus more on ­ what Germans would refer to as ­ the
`Eigendynamik' of international organizations and, hence, would draw our
attention to their autonomy (Collins and White, 2011). In fact, as shown in the
first chapter of this book, constitutionalism, albeit from a normative rather
than a pragmatic angle, also purports to control the activities of international
organizations. One could argue ...