PLURINATIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

This chapter describes plurinational administrative institutions. Plurinational administrative institutions are today emerging as effective instruments for international cooperation in the legal, economic, and technical fields. They may be regarded as a pragmatic response to the need for a flexibly-structured regime capable of performing transnational activities of an administrative nature where politically-oriented international organizations, international administrative unions, or national entities are deemed unsuitable. The reasons for the choice of plurinational administrative institutions as the institutionalized form of cooperation are, thus, generally political, economic, and practical. Plurinational administrative institutions may emerge in all fields where transfrontier arrangements are needed. They are rather frequent in, but not limited to, cases of transfrontier cooperation between municipalities. Though various entities may clearly be identified as plurinational administrative institutions, their essential contours are amorphous. The notion of plurinational administrative institutions should be regarded as a working concept encompassing various highly diverse structural types. The spectrum ranges from institutions that are or that resemble joint stock corporations to others that are similar to national administrative agencies or again others that are structured like international administrative unions.