OUVRAGE : R.H. Ben-Ari, The Normative Position of International Non-Governmental Organizations under International Law

Catherine MAIA

Organizations give rise to multifaceted questions of legality and legitimacy. The normative position of INGOs within the 'international community' has proved to be acutely controversial, demanding a fundamental reconsideration of the concepts of the nation-state and of international organizations of all kinds. There is manifestly a crying need for a comprehensive framework against which the capacity of international law to comprehend these complex issues can be measured.

This book explores contemporary approaches towards INGOs, those based on criticism of the doctrine of international legal personality as well as those adopting a functional-constitutional perspective. It engages in a stimulating and thorough interdisciplinary evaluation of the theoretical and practical potential of these theories to generate solutions for the problems produced by the exercise of unregulated authority outside the state-system. The book investigates the main concepts put forward by international lawyers within 'postmodern' discourse, among them 'global civil society', 'globalization' and 'governance', and examines their consistency with existing institutional arrangements, and the century-old attempts to standardize the status of INGOs.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Introduction
I. Overview: Contemporary Interdisciplinary Research
II. Analytical Frameworks
1. The Traditional Doctrinal Approach
2. Conceptual Frameworks Outside Personality
III. Analytical Paradigms in the Context of Discourses on Legitimacy and Fairness
IV. Main Lines of Inquiry and Outline

Part I: INGOs: Arguing a Normative Status for Non-State Actors
I. Subjects of International Law: Historic Context and Modern Controversies
II. The Doctrine of International Legal Personality: Governing Principles
III. INGOs: Role and Relevance
1. Defining INGOs
2. Defining ‘Globalization’
3. Role and Relevance of INGOs
IV. Analysis of Present Legal Status
1. Article 71 UN Charter
2. The European Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International NGOs
3. Evaluation;
V. INGOs’ International Normative Status: Intermediate Observations

Part II: Ameliorating a Formal Normative Status for INGOs: Contextual Historical Analysis of Past Attempts and Legal Instruments
I. Historical Synopsis of Attempts to Draft an International Convention on the Normative Position of INGOs under International Law and Consequent Legal Arrangements
1. Pre Second World War Developments
2. Post Second World War Developments
II. Analysis and Evaluation

Part III: The Emerging Global Scene: A Postmodern Perspective
I. The Postmodern Human Condition: Paradoxes and Communitarian Appeals
II. Globalization and De-Territorialization
III. Globalization and Theories on State and Society
IV. Global Civil Society
V. American Perspective vs. Pan-European Perspective;

Part IV: ‘INGOs Within the Global Legal Order – Evolution, Revolution, or Vague Perception?’: Conclusions and Recommendations
I. Political Knowledge and Sovereignty Debates
II. Historical Context of Contemporary Trends
III. International Legal Personality and Status
IV. Aggregate Individual Rights
V. International Legal Models of Idealism
VI. Globalization Debate
VII. Notion of Global Civil Society
VIII. Accountability and Legitimacy
IX. Normative Perception
X. Hard Questions and Future Inquiry

Bibliography; Index

Rephael Harel BEN-ARI, The Normative Position of International Non-Governmental Organizations under International Law, Leiden, Martinus Nijhoff, 2012 (396 pp.)

Dr. Rephael Harel Ben-Ari, Ph.D (2010), Bar-Ilan University; LL.M (Public International Law) (cum laude), Leiden University; LL.B (cum Laude), Tel-Aviv University; Hauser Global Research Fellow & Neil MacCormick Fellow in Legal Theory (2011-2012), New York University School of Law; teaches public and criminal international law.