Lecture summary: After 1945, the United Nations – and international organizations (IOs) more generally – were widely embraced as the ideal, democratic means to resolve international conflicts and promote global welfare. Sharing this almost feverish enthusiasm, a Western-controlled International Court of Justice adopted a deferential attitude toward IOs. The law it developed exuded confidence in the impartiality of IOs, premised on an unquestioning assumption that their subjection to legal discipline and judicial review would be unnecessary and even counterproductive. I propose that the time has come to concede that the utopian premises upon which the international law relating to IOs is based are flawed and outline a new course for the international law on IOs, one that addresses the inherent flaws of collective decision-making and can assist IOs to achieve their stated goals.

Professor Eyal Benvenisti is Samuel Rubin Visiting Professor of Law, Columbia Law School (2022). He is the Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge, CC Ng Fellow in Law at Jesus College, and the Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of the Global Visiting Faculty of New York University School of Law. He is Member of the Institut de droit international and of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities. A Co-Editor of the British Yearbook of International Law, he served on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of International Law (2009-18). He was Project Director of the “GlobalTrust – Sovereigns as Trustees of Humanity” research project, funded by an ERC Advanced Grant (2013-18). He previously was a Visiting Professor at the law schools at Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Toronto and Yale. He gave special courses at The Hague Academy of International Law (2013) and the Xiamen Academy of International Law (2017). Benvenisti will deliver the General Course in International Law at The Hague Academy of International Law in 2024.