International organizations are heavily involved in global governance, for better or for worse. The global health situation would be different (and most likely far worse) without the WHO, as Covid-19 has so vividly illustrated, and air traffic safety is due, at least in part, to the work of the ICAO. The IMF’s austerity policies have been linked to populist politics all over the world, and, while this may suggest that organizations can no longer be seen, in Singh’s glorious phrase, as contributing to the ‘salvation of mankind’,1 it nonetheless also suggests that organizations play an important role in the governance of the globe. It is, arguably, no coincidence that the two most pressing global crises concern issue areas which are not the subject of activities of any single organization: the financial crisis and global warming.

International organizations are generally counted among the subjects of international law, together with states, individuals, and perhaps some other entities as well.1 Thus, in accordance with the standard definition of ‘subject’, they are deemed capable of independently bearing rights and obligations under international law.2

The study of childhood has been dominated by the field of psychology but a robust tradition in anthropology, dating at least to Mead’s (1928/1961) Coming of Age in Samoa, calls attention to the culture-bound flaw in psychology. Mead’s work undermined the claim by psychologist G. Stanley Hall that stress was inevitably part of adolescence. Less well known was Malinowski’s earlier critique of Freud’s Oedipal theory based on fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands (Malinowski 1927/2012). Universal stage theories of cognitive development, such as that of Jean Piaget, met a similar fate when cross-cultural comparative studies demonstrated profound and unpredicted influences of culture and school attendance (Greenfield 1966; Lancy and Strathern 1981; Lancy 1983). Ochs and Schieffelin’s (1984) analysis of adult–child language interaction also showed that ethnographic studies in non-Western societies could be used to “de-universalize” claims made in mainstream developmental psychology. Bob LeVine has taken on one of psychology’s most sacred cows, mother–infant attachment (see also Scheper-Hughes 1987a).

One of the classic branches of international law is the law of immunity. States, their (political) leaders and their diplomatic representatives claim, and are usually granted, privileges and immunities in their mutual relations. Diplomats cannot, generally, be sued unless their immunity is waived, and diplomatic agents are exempt from certain forms of taxation and civil duties in the state where they are accredited. Moreover, diplomatic missions and belongings are generally inviolable. As far as the privileges and immunities of diplomatic agents go, these are usually explained with the help of the theory that, without immunities and privileges, diplomats cannot freely do their work. If a diplomat risks being arrested on frivolous charges at the whim of the host state, international relations can hardly be maintained.

One theme we’ve been pursuing throughout is the notion that high human fertility is facilitated by the child’s relatively rapid transition from wholly dependent to semi-dependent status. Childhood, as a stage of development unique to our species, allows the child to develop slowly with relatively little attention from its mother, freeing her to bear another infant. However, being a child does not just mean that one can survive well with minimal care from adults; it also means, in a more positive sense, that one’s life is filled with play activity. From the perspective of the harried parent, children’s deep engagement with playthings and playmates is a godsend. However, keeping busy turns out to be only one of a host of potential benefits conveyed by play.

Each computer can perform a set of instructions (basic operations) to move and transform data. To support software, which evolves at a different pace, instructions are a critical interface for compatibility. For the hardware, the instruction set is the specification that must be implemented correctly, and as fast and cheaply as possible. To illustrate these concepts and give a practical understanding, we describe the elements of an instruction set using an emerging open-source instruction set, the RISC-V. This concrete example illustrates how an instruction set supports basic software constructs, and the challenges of implementation.

The methods of settlement considered so far can be used in all types of disputes and are available to all states. Alongside these general methods are to be found specialised procedures created by particular groups of states for the resolution of disputes in a specific subject area. We have already seen the specific nature of investor-state arbitration in Chapter 7. The machinery available for the settlement of disputes in other special fields will be considered in subsequent chapters. Chapter 11 examines dispute settlement in international trade law, while this chapter provides an outline and review of the arrangements for dispute settlement to be found in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereafter ‘the Convention’ or ‘UNCLOS’).

Camilla Morelli (2011, 2012) has been a recent participant observer – with a focus on children – in a transitional community of Matses Indians in the Peruvian Amazon. She marvels at how facile and active the Matses children are in the natural environment, compared to what she feels is her own ineptitude. She is cowed by three- and four-year-olds who competently paddle and maneuver canoes on the wide river. She observes young boys nimbly catching and handling enormous catfish (cover photo). And then she is struck by the painful contrast between the children’s mastery of their natural surroundings and the great discomfort and incompetence they display in the classroom.

International organizations perform activities in areas in which states can no longer operate effectively in isolation, and in which there is a common interest in cooperation within a permanent international framework. This chapter will examine international organizations primarily from a legal perspective. The chapter aims to present a general overview of the law of international organizations. It discusses the legal status, privileges, and immunities of international organizations. The chapter further deals with membership issues, powers, and institutional structures. The chapter also looks at decisions of international organizations: the way in which they are taken and the different types of decisions. The chapter will briefly examine the finances of international organizations. There has been an exponential increase in activities of international organizations over the years. Not all of these activities have been successful, however, and there have been failures and wrongdoings. In recent years, a much-debated issue is the extent to which international organizations and/or their members may be held responsible for such failures and wrongdoings.

International economic law is a field of public international law that regulates crossborder transactions in goods, services, and capital, as well as monetary relations between states. This chapter focuses on the branches of international economic law that govern international trade, international investment, and international monetary law. It sets out the historical background, fundamental rules, and dispute settlement systems in the areas of international trade law and international investment law, and it concludes by introducing international monetary law. International trade and international investment law share some fundamental principles, such as non-discrimination, although most favored nation treatment and national treatment take somewhat different forms in the two bodies of law. This chapter covers the Bretton Woods institutions, namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO).

This chapter begins by elaborating on the concept of a dispute, before providing a historical perspective on the evolution of the requirement to settle disputes peacefully. The chapter then explores diplomatic as well as legal methods of dispute settlement. Diplomatic forms of dispute settlement (also known as political or non-legal forms of dispute settlement) include negotiation, mediation, inquiry, and conciliation. Legal forms of dispute settlement include arbitration and adjudication. Resort by states to dispute settlement procedures, and in particular legal methods of dispute settlement, has grown exponentially in the last decades. Since the 1990s, the International Court of Justice has had an increasingly active docket of cases, and, in addition, the Permanent Court of Arbitration has undergone a sort of renaissance. The focus of this chapter will be on the settlement of inter-state disputes, as opposed to disputes between states and non-state actors or between non-state actors.