The Loss of Institutionality in International Organizations, and their Decline in the Contemporary International Society

Never before have international organisations (IOs) been as numerous or as questioned as they are today. One reason for this, I believe, is the shift away from institutionalisation, which renders them inoperative and, thus, irrelevant. This decline in the institutional component of IOs has caused – and continues to cause – many of them to become empty shells with acronyms. Their bodies are purely testimonial and are supplanted in decision-making by their member states, which prefer informal agreement mechanisms that can be pursued outside or in parallel to the institutional procedures provided for in the IO’s constitutive treaty. This preference of states to act in parallel to – or instead of – IOs’ bodies when dealing with issues falling under their jurisdiction erodes their institutional component. As a result, the organisations cease to be – as set out in their constitutive treaties – true centres of decision-making and action based on a specific, independent, and permanent institutional structure consisting of bodies responsible for managing collective interests and capable of expressing a will that is legally different from that of their member states. They thus become mere institutional skeletons.