With globalization, States are no longer the only actors on the world scene: they share the stage with international organizations. An international organization may be defined as an association of States that is created by international treaty and has personality under international law. (Legal personality is the capacity to enjoy rights, enter into transactions and claim legal redress.) Several international organizations have important roles in this book. Here, we introduce some of them.

The European Union

Pride of place must be given to the EU. Some people feel that it is not an international organization at all, since its powers are so much greater than the general run of such organizations. They prefer to call it a “supranational” organization, to indicate that it does not merely operate in relations between States, but has power over them.

There is no general agreement as to what it means when one says that an organization is supranational, but the easiest way of explaining it is to say that the organization itself must have significant powers that can be exercised independently of its member states. The organization must be more than the member states acting together. It must be a force on its own. The EC bureaucracy, the Commission, has such powers. In contrast, the United Nations is supranational only to a small degree. Its Secretary General can do little without the support of major powers, such as the United States.