International Organizations As Law-makers

This book addresses how international organizations with a global reach, such as the UN and the WTO, have changed the mechanisms and reasoning behind the making, implementation, and enforcement of international law. Alvarez argues that existing descriptions of international law and international organizations do not do justice to the complex changes resulting from the increased importance of these institutions after World War II, and especially from changes after the end of the Cold War. In particular, this book examines the impact of the institutions on international law through the day to day application and interpretation of institutional law, the making of multilateral treaties, and the decisions of a proliferating number of institutionalized dispute settlers.

Jose E. Alvarez is Professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses on international law, foreign investment, international legal theory, and international organizations, and is executive director of the Center on Global Legal Problems. Prior to entering academia in 1989, Professor Alvarez was an attorney adviser with the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State. While in the State Department, he worked on arbitrations before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, served on the negotiation teams for bilateral investment treaties and the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and was legal adviser to the administration of justice program in Latin America coordinated by the Agency of International Development. Professor Alvarez has also been in private practice and served as a judicial clerk on the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.