Although many internationalists like Bentham

and Kant imagined the possibility of a global

government, nothing of sort exists today.
There is no one organization that various states
are accountable to.
Moreover, no organization can militarily
compel a state to obey predetermined rules.
There is, however, some irregularity in the
general behavior of states.
For example, they are more or less following
global navigation routes and, more often than
not, respect each other’s territorial boundaries.
Moreover, when they do not ― like when Russia
invaded Crimea in 2014 ― it becomes a cause
for global concern and debate
There are many sources of global governance.
States sign treaties and form organizations, in process
legislating public international law (international
rules that govern interaction between states as
opposed to, say, private companies).
International non-governmental organization (NGOs),
though not having formal state power, can lobby
individual states to behave in a certain way (for
example, an international animal protection NGO can
pressure governments to pass animal cruelty laws)
Powerful transnational corporations can
likewise have tremendous effects on a
global labour laws, environmental
legislation, and trade policy, etc. even
ideas such as the need for “global
democracy” or the clamour for “good
governance” can influence the ways
international actors behave.
When scholars refer to groups like the UN or
institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, they
usually call them international organizations (IOs).
Although international NGOs are sometimes
considered as IOs, the term is commonly used to
refer to international intergovernmental
organizations or groups that are primarily made up
of member-states.
One major fallacy about international organizations is
that they are merely amalgamations of various state
interests.
In the 1960s and 1970s, many scholars believed that
IOs were just venues where the contradicting, but
sometimes intersecting, agendas of countries were
discussed ― no more than talk shops.
What has become more evident in recent years,
however, is that IOs can take on lives of their own.
IOs can thus become influential as
independent organizations.

International relations scholars Michael N.

Barnett and Martha Finnemore listed the
following powers of IOs.
First, IOs have power of classification.
Because IOs can invent and apply categories, they
create powerful global standards.
For example, it is the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) that defines to accept refugees
entering their borders, this power to establish
identity has concrete effects.
Second, IOs have the power to fix meanings.
This is a broader function related to the first.
Various terms like “security” or “development” need to be
well-defined.
States, organizations, and individual view IOs as legitimate
sources of information.
As such, the meanings they create have effects on various
policies.
For example, recently, the United Nations has started to
define security as not just safety from military violence, but
also safety from environmental harm.
Finally, IOs have the power to diffuse norms.
Norms are accepted codes of conduct that may not be strict law,
but nevertheless produce regularity in behaviour.
IOs do not classify and fix meanings; they also spread their ideas
across the world, thereby establishing the global standards.
Their members are, as Barrett and Finnemore emphasized, the
“missionaries” of our time. Their power to diffuse norms stems
from the fact that IOs are staffed with independent bureaucracies,
who are considered experts in various fields.
For example, World Bank economists come to be regarded as
experts in development and thus carry some form of authority.
They can, therefore, create norms regarding the implementation
and conceptualization of development projects.
Because of these immense powers, IOs can be sources of great
good and great harm.
They can provide relevant norms like environmental protection
and human rights.
But, like other entrenched bureaucracies, they can become
sealed-off communities that fail to challenge their beliefs.
For example, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
famously criticized the IMF for using a “one-size-fits-all”
approach when its economist made recommendations to
developing countries.
Having examined the powers, limitations and weaknesses
of IOs, the spotlight will now fall on the most prominent IO
in the contemporary world, the United Nations (UN).
After the collapse of the League of Nations at the end of the
World War 2, countries that worried about another global
war began to push for the formation of a more lasting
international league.
The result was the creation of the UN.
Although the organization is far from perfect, it should be
emphasized that it has so far achieved its primary goal of
averting another global war. For this reason alone, the UN
should be considered a success
The main headquarters of the United Nations in New York
The UN is divided into five active organs. The General
Assembly (GA) is UN’s “main deliberative policy making and
representative organ.”
According to the UN charter: “Decisions on important
questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of
new members, and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds
majority of the General Assembly.
Decisions on the other questions are done by simple majority.
Annually, the General Assembly elects a GA President to serve
a one year term of office.”
All members states (currently 193) have
seats in the GA’s early years when
Filipino diplomat Carlos P. Romulo was
elected GA president from 1949-1959.
Although the GA is the most representative
organization in the UN, many commentators consider
the Security Council (SC) to be the most powerful.
According to the UN, this body consists of 15 member
states. The GA elects 10 of these 15 to two-year terms.
The other five ― sometimes referred to as the
Permanent 5 (P5) ― are China, France, Russia, United
Kingdom and United States.
These states have been permanent members since
the founding of UN, and cannot be replaced through
election
Xi Jinping On 70th Session Of The UN General Assembly
Much attention has been placed on the SC’s P5
due to their permanent seats and because each
country holds veto power over the council’s
decision.
It only takes one veto vote from a P5 member to
stop an SC action dead in its tracks. In this sense,
the SC is heir to the tradition of “great power”
diplomacy that began with the
Metternich/Concert of Europe system.
It is especially telling that the P5 consists of the
major Allied Powers that won World War 2.
In late 1960s, the diplomat Salvador Lopez was
chairman of the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights.
Lopez and other Filipinos helped design the system
whereby any citizen of any state may petition the UN to
look into human rights violations in a country.
That system exist until today.
Human rights therefore are not foreign impositions.
They are part of our heritage.
Given the scope of the UN’s activities, it naturally faces
numerous challenges.
Chief among these are the limits placed upon its various
organs and programs by the need to respect state
sovereignty.
The UN is not the world government, and it functions not
primarily because of voluntary cooperation from states. If
states refuse to cooperate, the influence of the UN can be
severely circumscribed.
For example, the UN Council on Human Rights can
send special rapporteurs to countries where alleged
human rights violations are occurring.
If a country does not invite the rapporteur or places
conditions on their activities, however, this
information-gathering mechanism usually fails to
achieve its goals.
However, perhaps the biggest challenge of the United Nations
is related to issues of security.
As mentioned, the UNs Security Council is tasked with
authorizing international acts of military intervention.
Because of P5’s veto power, it is tough for the countries to
release a formal resolution, much more implement it.
This became an issue, for example, in the late 1990s when the
United States sought to intervene in the Kosovo war.
Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was committing acts of
ethnic cleansing against ethnic Muslim Albanians were victims
of Kosovo
Hundreds and thousands of Albanians were victims of massacres,
mass deportations, and internal displacement.
Amid this systematic terror, members of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), led by the United States, sought SC
authorization to intervene on the Kosovo war on humanitarian
grounds.
China and Russia, however, threatened to veto actions, rendering
the UN incapable of addressing the crisis.
NATO decided to intervene on its own.
Though the NATO intervention was largely a success, it,
nevertheless, left the UN ineffectual
Today, a similar dynamic is evident in Syria, which is
undergoing a civil war.
Russia threatened to veto any SC resolution against Syria;
thus, the UN has done very little to stop state sanctioned
violence against opponents of the government.
Since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is an ally of Russian
dictator Vladimir Putin, the latter has shied away from any
policy that could weaken the legitimacy of the former.
As a result, the UN is again ineffectual amid a conflict that
has led to over 220,000 people dead and 11 million
displaced.
Despite these problems, it remains important for the SC to place
a high bar on military intervention.
The UN Security Council has been wrong on issues of
intervention, but it has also made the right decisions.
When the United States sought to invade Iraq in 2001, it claimed
that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) that threatened the world.
However, the UN members Russia, China, and France were
unconvinced and veto the UN resolution for intervention, forcing
the United States to lead a small “coalition of the willing” with its
allies.
It has been since discovered that there were no weapons of mass
destruction, and the invasion of Iraq has caused problems for the
country and the region that last until today.