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

Abstract

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.