Membership, Associate Membership and Pre-accession Arrangements of CERN, ESO, ESA, and EUMETSAT

Abstract

Although there is abundant literature on membership of international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union or the WTO, membership issues concerning European scientific organizations are rarely looked upon. This can be explained by the focus of the legal community on political and economic organizations. The introduction of the article clarifies why separate European scientific organizations were needed and how the scientific community created European cooperation on a sectoral basis, sometimes aided by US scientists. The scientific organizations maintained themselves as independent organizations notwithstanding the absorptive capacity demonstrated by the dynamics of the European Union. The article argues that the four European scientific organizations developed a similar but not identical legal practice regarding admission of new member states and membership obligations. CERN and ESA are the two conceptual models for the development of legal solutions to membership questions which contributes to the formation of a similar law pattern of European scientific organizations. Treaty amendment has been avoided and legal practice is developed by the plenary organ, the Council. Legal similarities offer the advantage to states, as members of the four scientific organizations, to understand better the particular nature of scientific organizations and their operations. The article pays attention to recent expansion of membership as a complex issue which reinforced the adoption of similar legal solutions and the introduction of a pre-accession policy with increased membership conditionality.