Outsider or frontrunner? Recent developments under international and European law on the status of the European Union in international organizations and treaty bodies

Abstract

Much of the European Union’s foreign policy credo focuses on the promotion of effective multilateralism. The Council of the European Union put this notion at the heart of the European Security Strategy (2002), and the European Commission referred to the EU as a “frontrunner” in the UN system in its communication on EU-UN relations (2003). Whereas the world organization with its wide net of specialized agencies offers a most important platform for multilateral diplomacy for EU Member States, it is less flexible as regards the participation of the European Union itself. Membership in the main organization is still confined to States only (Art. 4(1) of the UN Charter). True, in 1991, the first UN specialized agency, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), adopted the necessary constitutional modifications to allow membership of the European Community. However, since then no major UN specialized agency has welcomed the EC as a member.