This chapter begins by introducing the international civil service – the employees of international organizations, possessing a treaty-based status, inherent to instrumentalizing the mandates of multilateral institutions. Second, the legal attributes of the international civil service are identified, namely: (1) Efficiency and competence; (2) Geography diversity; and (3) Integrity and independence. Third, the chapter considers the authority to administer the international civil service, possessed by the principal executive officer, who is appointed and regulated by the governance organs of international organizations. Fourth, and in conclusion, this legal basis of the international civil service is restated.

This chapter begins by introducing international organizations, historically constituted and governed in accordance with international law. Second, the conventional legal characteristics of international organizations are identified, namely: (1) Treaty-basis; (2) State membership; (3) Independence. Third, an examination is made of the way in which the powers of international organizations are sufficient to achieve – but not exceed – their purposes. Fourth, the privileges and immunities that states typically extend to international organizations within their jurisdictions are considered. Fifth, and in conclusion, this legal basis of international organizations is restated.

This is the book’s ‘exit’ chapter. It examines how, following the success of the Truth Commissions in Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador, Truth Commissions were given an ‘origins story’. The argument is that this occurred in the 1990s through the retrospective redescription of Uganda’s 1974 Commission of Inquiry as the ‘inaugural’ Truth Commission. The 1974 Commission of Inquiry was established as part of Idi Amin’s response to international pressure from human rights groups (particularly the International Commission of Jurists). The chapter discusses how the redescription of the Commission of Inquiry began at the end of the Cold War, with the publication of an article by Richard Carver in 1990, and in 1994 with an article by Priscilla Hayner. The redescription of the Commission of Inquiry as a ‘Truth Commission’ turns on the extent to which it is considered an institution that advanced human rights, which shows how the authority of Truth Commissions has depended on their connection to international law from the ‘beginning’.

In this introduction, I explore theories of injury and ethnographic methods for studying them. I treat injuries and their causes holistically, as reflecting the wounding and coactive effects of an array of harmful exposures, historical circumstances, technologies, environments, and political systems. In conceiving of injury across different scales of time, I offer insights into what health scholars term the ‘secondary’ impacts of injury on claimants and their families. Increasingly, scholars recognize that compensation systems, medico-legal assessments, and claim-making practices themselves contribute to or cause significant negative harm and secondary impacts to both the injured and their families. In contrast to the medical language of primary and secondary illness, I argue for a participant-centred and experience-near approach, one that can trace the connections test veterans themselves draw across time and within their personal and community illness narratives, as they built understandings of radiation injury and harm. Original injury or exposure ‘events’ were narratively enfolded within the cascade of transforming and accumulating harms that participants experienced.

An idea at the centre of recent debates about corporate purpose and governance is the apparently intuitive notion that shareholders own corporations. Though misaligned with academic legal opinion, this notion is rooted in common sense and as such is often used, explicitly or implicitly, to close down discussions about the position of shareholders as regards other stakeholders and the social role of business corporations. The chapter analyses the power and persuasiveness of this common-sensical position through the lens of discourse analysis, aided by concepts drawn from pragma-linguistics and sociology. It shows how common sense can be shaped by primary definers in strategic action fields to promote ideological precepts, such as, in this case, the ideology of shareholder primacy. To understand how the field of corporate control is structured and how it has evolved, what is needed is a deeper investigation into how common sense is produced, shaped, and curated over time.

This chapter begins by describing performance management – the administrative action of appraising performance and its consequences – inherent to the continuing treaty-based obligation of international organizations to secure the highest standards of efficiency and competence of their staff. Second, the legal principles of performance management are identified, namely: (1) Absent abuse of discretion, deference is owed performance-managers; (2) Performance management defects must be manifest, to be contestable; and (3) Probationary decisions exercise the widest discretion. Third, two attendant legal duties of performance appraisal are considered, as follows: (1) Performance appraisal must be useable; and (2) Performance appraisal must afford an opportunity to respond. Fourth, the temporary intensification of performance management as the basis for termination of appointment – in the context of probation and substandard performance – is examined. Fifth, and in conclusion, this employment law of performance management at international organizations is restated.

The conclusion reviews the book’s theory of governance using the final example of space as a site of governance and queerness.

This chapter begins by introducing standards of conduct – implementing the integrity and independence attributed to the international civil service by the treaty-basis of international organizations. Second, the legal principles of conduct are identified, namely: (1) The interests of the international organization are paramount; (2) Abuse of authority must be manifest, to be contestable; (3) International officials must be uncorrupted; and (4) External authority must not compromise international officials. Third, three attendant legal duties of conduct are considered, as follows: (1) Integrity requires honesty and reputability; (2) Integrity requires reserve and respect; and (3) Integrity requires discipline and hierarchical authority. Fourth, the duty to report alleged beaches of the standards of conduct (sometimes styled, ‘whistleblowing’) is considered. Fifth, the chapter examines the interaction between the immunity typically possessed by international officials in the course of their duties and the exercise of national legal jurisdictions, notably when crimes may have been committed in connection to the workplace. Sixth, and in conclusion, this employment law of standards of conduct at international organizations is restated. The employment law of the enforcement of integrity and the independence of the international civil service – procedures to ascertain and sanction breaches of standards of conduct – is the subject of Chapter 10, ‘Misconduct’.

This chapter begins by introducing international administrative tribunals – independent, judicial, subsidiary organs of international organizations, competent to compulsorily adjudicate employment-related disputes involving international officials – that whilst ubiquitous, are implied, but not expressly stated, by the treaty-basis of all multilateral institutions. Second, the legal characteristics of international administrative tribunals are identified, namely: (1) Capacity to establish administrative tribunals is treaty-based; (2) Administrative tribunals possess an independent and judicial status; and (3) The jurisdiction of administrative tribunals is determined by their statute. Third, the chapter considers the ability – and related approach – of administrative tribunals to impose administrative relief upon, and financial awards against, the employing international organization. Fourth, and in conclusion, this legal basis of international administrative tribunals is restated.

Chapter 4 continues the discussion of why same-sex marriage happened in Cuba, proposing additional contributing factors related to Cuba’s post-Soviet economy, including foreign investment and tourism. In particular, it argues that same-sex marriage is not merely a sign of decreasing homophobia, but of a transformation in sexual identity categories.