Autonomy of International Organisations

This research project aims to engage with the idea of international organisations as autonomous entities, both in terms of control and influence over their membership and as independent actors in the international legal system. It will consider the difficulties of theorising autonomy in such a decentralised legal system, where autonomy appears as both desirable and dangerous at the same time. Related to this, it will question how changing perceptions of international law affect ideas of autonomy in particular institutional settings, and how, in turn, particular institutional experiences may affect our perceptions of, or ambitions for change within the international system as a whole.

The result of this project is the publication edited by Richard Collins and Nigel White (University of Nottingham), 'International Organisations and the Idea of Autonomy: Institutional Independence in the International Legal Order (Routledge Research in International Law)' due to be published in April 2011.  

The series of seminars throughout the 2008-09 academic year, including an opening half-day workshop, aimed at bringing together leading and early–career academics with interests in international law, institutional law and legal and political theory, to discuss these themes and the links between them.

Friday 24th October, Half-Day Workshop
"Introducing a Theme: International Organizations and the Idea of Autonomy" at the Douglas Knoop Centre, Humanities Research InstituteParticipants: Duncan French (Sheffield), Garrett W. Brown (Sheffield), Patrick Capps (Bristol), Jean d´Aspremont (Leiden), Richard Collins (Sheffield), Sorcha Macleod (Sheffield), Tarcisio Gazzini (Free University, Amsterdam), Dimitrios Kyritsis (Sheffield), Nicholas Tsagourias (Bristol), Tawhida Ahmed (Sheffield).

Wednesday 19th November 2008
Prof. John Merrills, University of Sheffield "Autonomy and International Adjudication"

Thursday 11th December 2008
Dr. Duncan French, University of Sheffield "Autonomy in International Environmental Law & Governance - A Case Study of the Actual (somewhere between the fable and the threat)"

Friday 6th February 2009
Ralph Wilde, University of Central London "International organization autonomy as a bar to accountability: peace operations and the Behrami case"

Wednesday 4th March 2009
Paul James Cardwell, University of Sheffield 'Institutional Autonomy and the Governance of EU Foreign Policy'

Tuesday 23rd March 2009
Catherine Brolmann, University of Amsterdam 'Intergovernmental Organisations and the Rule of Law'

Wednesday 1st April 2009
Dr. Alison Duxbury, Associate Professor, University of Melbourne "Suspending States from International Organizations for Violations of Human Rights and Democracy"

Wednesday 29th April 2009
Nigel White, University of Sheffield'UN Security Council: Consort or Corporate?'

Wednesday 6th May 2009 - 6th May
James Muiruri International Law Lecture, Professor Jan Klabbers, University of Helsinki 'Constitutionalizing Virtue in International Institutional Law'