ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the evolution and context of legislation that enabled the emergence and recognition of regional cross-boundary organizations as important policy entities. It lays out the dominant approaches that states have employed in conceptualizing regional space, defining regional boundaries and determining which organizations they would officially recognize within those regions. The chapter focuses on the rules and regulations governing the creation of cross-boundary organizations in general and Regional Intergovernmental Organizations (RIGOs) in particular. It makes two important and overarching points. First, states have played, and continue to play an important role in shaping the milieu within which RIGOs developed. Secondly, and very much relatedly, there was great state-level variation in RIGO origin stories and, consequently, in the degree to which they are institutionally empowered and functionally endowed. In enabling cross-boundary organizations states developed similar conceptions of their legal status. In most states, cross-boundary organizations were created as subdivisions of the state or "bodies politic."
