ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of international law and international organizations (IGOs) in global politics. It concludes with the evolution of regional IGOs, focusing on the hitherto successful but currently troubled European Union (EU). The dominant theoretical approaches disagree on the significance of international law. Realists tend to dismiss international law because of the absence of a means to enforce it. The question of proportionality was heatedly debated following the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in 2014. International organizations depend on member states for their creation, purposes, and survival. The United Nations was to become a great experiment in cooperating to maintain peace and security. The end of US-Russian hostility seemed to herald the dawn of a new era in UN peace enforcement. Financing the United Nations is a continuing challenge for the organization. The most far-reaching experiment in regional organization is the EU.
