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2 results

  • 6 - Corporate Existence as a Problem of Starting Assumptions about Members’ Existence

  • Orfeas Chasapis Tassinis, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    A Theory of International Organizations in Public International Law
    Published online:
    26 September 2025
    Print publication:
    16 October 2025, pp 133-158

  • Summary

    If assessing the existence of a corporate entity is meaningless before establishing the presumed existence of its members, we should then first investigate what is supposed to make these members irreducible to begin with. I discuss two broad philosophical outlooks in that regard. The first understands individuals as naturally irreducible, organic or soulful, entities. The second treats individuals themselves as organizations of a miniature size, and in that sense as artificial entities. The first approach essentially poses an insurmountable barrier to the possibility of genuine corporate existence; the second is more accommodating. Rather than suggesting which approach is correct from a philosophical perspective, this chapter extracts from the aforementioned discussion a more nuanced way of thinking about the problem of corporate existence in general, setting the stage for revisiting how we theorize international organizations.

A Theory of International Organizations in Public International Law
  • Orfeas Chasapis Tassinis
  • Published online:
    26 September 2025
    Print publication:
    16 October 2025
  • Greater, lesser, or just different than the sum of their parts? For all their prominence in global affairs, international organizations remain relative strangers from the perspective of international legal theory. Drawing insights from philosophical discourse, this book moves past binary models that would have international organizations either be nothing over and above their members or simply analogous to them. Rather than compare international organizations and their members, Chasapis Tassinis asks us to understand them both as manifestations of communal organization and what international law recognizes as 'public' authority. Theorizing international organizations as only a branch within a broader family of corporate entities, this book allows us to untangle old doctrinal puzzles. These include the extent to which international organizations are bound by customary international law and can contribute to its formation, or whether they enjoy a legal personality that is opposable to members and non-members alike.