Legal Position of Intergovernmental Organizations : A Functional Necessity Analysis of Their Legal Status and Immunities

This book is the first treatise in English to present an overall functional necessity approach to the study of the legal position of intergovernmental organizations. According to this approach, an international organization is entitled to (no more than) what is necessary for the exercise of its functions in the fulfillment of its purposes. The book embodies a three-step analysis that links an organization's legal status (personality/ capacity/powers) and immunities to the functions and purposes of the organization. The book also reviews existing methods of counterbalancing organizational immunities and includes the International Tin Council litigation as a case study.

With a Foreword by Sir Robert Jennings.

“It is a book which deserves a place in specialized international law collections, and certainly on the shelves of anyone, be they a government or private party, who has any legal dealings with international organizations.”
―Maurice Mendelson, Book Review, XXIII(4) Law Books in Review 159 (1996)

Peter H.F. Bekker, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair in International Law at the University of Dundee’s Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy and regularly appears before international tribunals as a member of the New York Bar.