Intergovernmental Organisations

Intergovernmental organisation definition

Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs) are crucial actors in global governance. Before delving into the definition of IGOs, let’s try and understand what global governance means.

Fig. 1 States and UN representatives at the COP21 climate change conference in 2015 in Paris. COPs are UN Summits where issues such as climate change are discussed, hence, global governance is coordinated.

So what is an Intergovernmental Organisation?

IGOs have grown exponentially in the past century, especially after World War Two. As we will see in the following sections, IGOs can have very different functions and structures according to their aims.

Intergovernmental organisations structure

An IGO comes with privileges, conditions of immunity, rights to respect, aims and international legal status. This permits the process through which different IGOs can decide to collaborate or coordinate collaboration and agreements between their members.

The most common features of an Intergovernmental Organisation are:

1. A legislative body coordinates legal acts, such as resolutions, the validity of agreements, and directives, which are crucial for the possibility of collaborations between states within the IGO. At the same time, the specific laws of the states which are part of an IGO are still valid, and IGO legislation does not legislate over national law. The only exception is the EU, which is a supranational organisation with some common legislation among its members that applies nationally.
2. The dispute-resolution body is needed to ensure that potential disputes and disagreements between members can be solved. Sometimes this looks like a tribunal, such as in the European Court of Human Rights, the tribunal of the Council of Europe.
3. The executive body can look very different from IGO to IGO; however, it is crucial in all IGOs to enact the operations decided by the members of the IGO. A secretariat is an example of an executive body.
4. A plenary assembly ensures the representation of all members of an IGO, similar to a Parliament. Indeed, the EU has the European Parliament and, the African Union, the Pan-African Parliament.
5. A secretariat is an office where administrative functions are tackled.
6. A subsidiary agency is an IGO organ responsible for specific tasks that may relate to a temporary situation or the long-term aims of the IGO. As we will see later, the UN has multiple subsidiary agencies.

Intergovernmental organisations functions

Explaining an IGO's function is not as simple as you might think. For now, we know that IGOs serve global governance; however, their function varies enormously according to their role.Nonetheless, we can try and group the most important types of IGOs with the following overview.

Types of IGOS

• Worldwide or Global Organisation: with this term, we usually refer to Intergovernmental Organisations, which are more or less open to all nations if the conditions for membership are met. The most famous example would be the UN, which has the function of coordinating global governance on a worldwide scale. At the same time, the UN holds different agencies which have more specific functions.

• Cultural, linguistic, ethnic, religious, or historical organisations: these organisations bring together states based on a shared identity, expressed, for example, in language or culture. In relation to the UK, we could see the Commonwealth of Nations as a linguistic and cultural organisation.

• Economic Organisations: these organisations are erected to achieve shared economic goals between countries, such as freer trade and economic development. Examples include the World Trade Organisation, which aims at consolidating free trade.

• Regional Organisations: these organisations unite members from a region of the world to coordinate efforts on different issues. They can be economic, such as the Economic Community of West African States, regional and historical such as the Council of Europe, or even military, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Intergovernmental organisations list

Fig. 2 The map shows members of OPEC, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, a crucial economic Intergovernmental Organisation.

As we have said above, the function of IGOs varies significantly according to their aims and values. Here is a list and a brief explanation of the four of the most essential IGOs:

• Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): this is a political and economic intergovernmental organisation that includes ten countries from Southeast Asia. It is based on cooperation, particularly on industrial development and production.
• European Union (EU): The EU is an intergovernmental organisation that entails twenty-seven members and coordinates politics and economics through the Euro-Zone and laws.
• Council of Europe: This intergovernmental organisation includes 47 European countries and was founded in 1949. It is different from the EU, and, indeed, the UK is still a part of the Council (despite leaving the EU). One of the most crucial organs of the council is The European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the Human Rights that Europe protects through its Convention.
• African Union (AU): the African Union unites fifty-five member states in the African continent. Just like the EU, it has a Parliament - the Pan-African Parliament.
• Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC): OPEC is worth mentioning as it is a crucial example of an Economic Intergovernmental Organisation. There are only thirteen members; however, their coordination around petroleum, such as policies, decisions on production, and sustainability, shapes the world.
• Asian Development Bank: this organisation is a financial and economic organisation, which is crucial for the development and future of Asian and Pacific countries. Its main aim is the development and eradication of poverty through loans, investments, and grants.

The UN

Fig. 3 The symbol of the UN, the most important Intergovernmental Organisation as it includes 193 countries as members.

The United Nations (UN), founded on the 24th of October, 1945, is the sole IGO where all states in the world can potentially be members. The members are currently 193. It is almost impossible for a state not to be part of the UN because for a country to be called such, the UN has to recognise it.

Of course, there are exceptions that regard territories that consider themselves autonomous, such as Palestine, which is an observer member, or Taiwan, which is recognised by only 13 members of the UN.

The topics the UN addresses are many and different, such as poverty, security, food, health, human rights, and climate. All of the various issues give existence to different agencies, i.e. sub-organs of the UN, which represent all of the world’s aims concerning the object they tackle.

Advantages of Intergovernmental Organisations

Intergovernmental Organisations are crucial tools for global governance, as we have seen until now. In particular, the main advantages are:

1. Coordinated decision-making enables tackling global or regional issues with global or regional participation so that all those impacted by the outcome can have a say. Decisions come with consensus and unanimity, which means that usually, big decisions have to be approved by everyone, and some members have veto powers, which signifies blocking decisions.
2. This signifies that states, especially smaller states, have agency in their futures and that citizens have a say in global issues through state representatives. Of course, this is not always the case, and it depends on various factors, such as the structure of governments.
3. Intergovernmental Organisations enable interconnection since different states that may not share some features, such as culture, religion, history, etc., can come in contact and find similarities in other interests. This enables, in turn, globalisation.
4. Intergovernmental Organisations allow countries to tackle issues that require enormous resources, such as a pandemic, with access to shared resources, such as financial capacity and technologies.