International Organizations

When the United States decided to reverse the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, it did not act unilaterally. It turned to the United Nations Security Council.

When the Security Council sought to learn the extent of chemical, biological, and nuclear arms in Iraq, it did not rely on U.S. forces. It dispatched inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

When the international community sought to maintain the suspension of combat in Bosnia, it did not rely only on national efforts. It sent in peacekeeping units under the aegis of the U.N. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

When states liberalized trade in services and strengthened intellectual property protection in the Uruguay Round, they were not content to draft rules. They created the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a highly institutionalized dispute settlement mechanism.

Formal international organizations (IOs) are prominent participants in many critical episodes in international politics. Examples in addition to those above include the following: Security Council sanctions on Libya, IAEA inspectors in North Korea, UN peacekeepers in the Middle East, and so forth. The U.N. secretary-general's 1992 Agenda for Peace sets out an even broader range of current and proposed U.N.functions in situations of international conflict: fact finding, early warning, and preventive deployment; mediation, adjudication, and other forms of dispute resolution; peacekeeping; sanctions and military force; impartial humanitarian assistance; and postconflict [Page 1315]rebuilding. But IO influence is not confined to dramatic interventions like these. On an ongoing basis, formal organizations help manage many significant areas of interstate relations, from global health policy (the WHO) to European security (OSCE and NATO) to international monetary policy (IMF). What is more, participation in such organizations appears to reduce the likelihood of violent conflict among member states.