The Forms of Succession between International Organizations

The issue of succession between international organizations first arose in the closing days of the Second World War when the allied powers laid the foundation of an entirely new family of international organizations to replace the League of Nations system which had become thoroughly discredited. ¹ The new United Nations Organization that emerged from the series of conferences held at Dunbarton Oaks, Yalta and San Francisco in 1944 and 1945 was, however, basically a revised version of the League. ² Like the Covenant of the League, the Charter of the United Nations provided for a system of global institutions consisting of a general-function organization and a number of special-function institutions having broad international responsibilities in ‘economic, social, cultural, education, health and related fields’. ³ These technical organizations were to be brought into relationship with the United Nations as its specialized agencies. ⁴ The system was designed to be decentralized in the sense that while the United Nations would assume the overall direction of international cooperation, each affiliated specialized agency would remain legally independent and autonomous. ⁵