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31 Suffolk Transnat'l L. Rev. 591 (2007-2008)
Governing the World: International Organizations as Lawmakers

handle is hein.journals/sujtnlr31 and id is 597 raw text is: GOVERNING THE WORLD: INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AS LAWMAKERS Josi E. Alvarez* Thank you. I am very grateful to the students here and the editors of the Suffolk Transnational Law Review for inviting me. I am also grateful that they permitted me to alter the title of my talk somewhat from that of my book. My talk today, on Gov- erning the World, only refers to international organizations as lawmakers as a subtitle. You should know that my title today was actually the one that I originally proposed to Oxford Uni- versity Press but that press, being more academic-oriented than capitalist, believed that Governing the World might appeal to a wider readership than the academics they believed would re- ally be interested in my book. Thanks to Oxford, my book re- mains in law library land, along with other boring academic treatises, and remains unread by the more general public. The reason I wanted Governing the World was to suggest that in- ter-state organizations are a very important part of globaliza- tion. I wanted to suggest the importance of inter-governmental organizations created by treaty, having states as their principal stakeholders, and aspiring to universal participation. My princi- pal subject is therefore those institutions that are part of the U.N. system, the international financial institutions such as the IMF or the World Bank, and the WTO. For my talk today I want to go beyond what I say in my book on the very, very dubious proposition that some here might have actually read it and that I need something novel to hold your attention. I will, however, begin with the central theme of my book. My premise is that the turn to these organi- zations after World War II, led, intentionally or not, to other fundamental changes in international law. It has taken us some fifty years to realize what some of these have been. * Josd E. Alvarez, J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A., Harvard College; B.A., Magdalen College, Oxford University. Professor Alvarez is the Hamilton Fish Profes- sor of Law and Diplomacy and the Executive Director of the Center on Global Legal Problems at Columbia Law School. This article is an edited version of a speech that Professor Alvarez presented at Suffolk University Law School on November 5, 2007 as part of the Suffolk Transnational Law Review's Distinguished Speaker Series.

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