Teaching Statehood

Abstract

Scholarship on international organizations law, like most approaches in international law and international relations (IR), is dominated by state-centric, functionalist and rational choice frameworks. According to these mainstream approaches, states are axiomatically the principal actors in international affairs, which pre-exist and create international organizations to serve their own interests and needs. To realists, international relations are structured by competition, the search for security and the struggle for power among rational, self-interested states. In this view, international organizations are epiphenomenal, reflecting extant power relations and having only a marginal impact on state behaviour.1 To IR scholars and international lawyers of a more liberal-institutionalist orientation, international organizations are designed and created by states to pursue shared goals, solve coordination problems and produce public goods.2