 International organizations have existed since the 19th century, but it is really during the second half of the 20th century that they have increased in number and in importance. Today, there are a few hundred international organizations around the world, from small technical organizations established between neighboring states, like a bilateral river commission to universal organizations entrusted with crucial political tasks, like the United Nations. International organizations play an important role in what can be called the global governance. Their expertise and professionalism is relied upon by states. And states often turn to them in order to design, decide and implement common policies. And of course, this is not without raising some concerns and some problems of legitimacy and accountability, but those issues are largely political issues rather than purely legal ones. And despite their importance, this course will unfortunately not be able to address all of them. Despite their differences in composition, in size and in object and purpose, international organizations can be defined from a legal point of view as associations of states and or of other organizations, associations that are established between them to serve specific tasks and which are equipped for that purpose with permanent organs. And let me take those elements in turn. First, an international organization is an association. Unlike states whose creation is to a large extent the result of a factual process, international organizations are always the result of a free intent to get together and act together. Second, an association as an association, the international organization has members. In many instances, those members are states and this explains why international organizations are also often referred to as being intergovernmental organizations. But other international organizations may also be members of international organizations if the rules of the organization allows it. And for instance, while only states may be members of the United Nations, separate customs territory, having full autonomy in the conduct of external commercial relations can also be members of the World Trade Organization. And this is why, for instance, the European Community, now the European Union, has been a founding member of the WTO alongside the European Union member states. Organizations are established as a result of a juridical act, usually a treaty concluded between the founding members. The organization is not party to the treaty under which it has been established, but such treaty will be the basic instrument of the organization. It will be binding upon the organization and it will be like a constitution for the organization. It is because their membership is made of other subjects of international law and it is because their creation results from an act governed by international law that international organizations can be distinguished from domestic law associations like NGOs or other legal entities constituted under the laws of a specific country. Three, an international organization is established between its members in order to serve specific tasks. Organizations are based on functionalism. They are there to fulfill certain functions and are, for that matter, specialized. For instance, an international organization can be established in order to monitor and to protect migrating birds or in order to design and coordinate the rules relating to civil aviation or in order to regulate fisheries in certain oceans or as the International Criminal Court to prosecute and to judge individuals accused of having committed grave international crimes. We'll revert to this element of functionalism and of speciality when addressing the personality and the powers of international organizations. Four, and lastly, international organizations are equipped with permanent organs. Those organs are usually a secretariat made of international civil servants and some governing body where the members of the organization are represented. And those organs are permanent. An international organization is not an ad hoc international conference set up for a certain purpose during a couple of weeks or months. The permanent character of the organs will make the organization an institution, an institution with its habits, its character and its internal culture. To put it bluntly, international organizations are bureaucracies. And by this, I do not want to mock them or to be pejorative in any way. On the contrary, as Max Weber demonstrated, bureaucracies are profoundly rational and they are central to any modern way to govern. Moreover, law is central to bureaucracies and bureaucracies are moved by the law. By this, I mean that bureaucrats always act by referring to the legal instruments and the rules in order to justify their action. Bureaucrats, civil servants, derive their power and their authority from the law and always refer and rely on it to give reasons for their actions. And this is true in national bureaucracies, but it is somehow squared in international bureaucracies. In any international organization, when a new task is envisaged, the first question that will need to be addressed is to know what legal basis and titles the organization to carry it out. And that is a question for lawyers. And as that question will always somehow refer to the international instrument under which the organization is established, which is an instrument governed by international law, that question will be a question of international law itself.