International Organisations | Class 12 Political Science Notes

This chapter introduces you to the major political International Organisations and the role they play in international politics. It also covers the structure of the United Nations and the founding of the League of Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, the IAEA and others. These notes stay close to the Class 12 syllabus, so use them for revision and then follow the links to see how the same institutions are shaping world affairs right now.

Introduction to International Organisations

What is an International Organisation?

An International Organisation is a legal entity established at the international level by a treaty or other instrument. It has its own international legal identity.

Organisations with international recognition include the United Nations, NATO and the World Health Organisation.

What is the role of an International Organisation?

An international organisation helps set the international agenda, provides a forum for global political initiatives and acts as a catalyst in relations between member states.

Some organisations have members from all over the world, while others, such as the European Union, the African Union and NATO, have geographic limits on who can join.

The primary aim of international organisations is to make cooperation and coordination among member countries easier.

The United Nations is one of the most important intergovernmental organisations in the world today. Its work is carried out through many bodies and regional organisations, such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

What led to the formation of organisations for peace, stability and cooperation?

The First World War led to the creation of the League of Nations, the first worldwide international organisation of its kind.

The United States played a major role in shaping the League. The US President, Woodrow Wilson, championed the idea for the sake of international peace and stability.

After the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations was proposed in 1919 and formally established in January 1920.

The outbreak of the Second World War, following the Nazi invasion of Poland, showed the League of Nations at its greatest failure: it could not stop a slide back into world war.

The United Nations

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organisation responsible for maintaining international peace and security.

Its major aim is to develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation and act as a centre for harmonising the actions of member states.

It is one of the largest, most internationally represented and most powerful organisations in the world.

Why do we need organisations like the UN?

International organisations help in both war and peace. They also help countries work together to improve everyone's living conditions.

An international organisation is not a super state with authority over its members. It takes shape only when states agree to create it. Some problems are so difficult that they can be solved only if everyone works together.

Some diseases, for example, can be wiped out only if every country vaccinates its citizens.

An international organisation can help gather information and ideas for collaboration.

It can provide the rules, mechanisms and administration that give members confidence that costs will be shared properly, that benefits will be distributed fairly, and that once a country joins an agreement it will keep to the terms.

What led to the formation of the United Nations?

The United Nations was set up as a successor to the League of Nations. It was established in 1945, shortly after the Second World War ended, when the United Nations Charter was signed by 51 countries.

The UN tried to accomplish what the League of Nations had failed to do between the two world wars. Its mission was to prevent international conflict and promote cooperation between states.

It was created in the hope of stopping inter state conflicts from escalating into war and, if war did break out, of limiting how far it spread.

The UN was also meant to bring countries together to improve social and economic development around the world.

By 2006 the United Nations had 192 member states. Almost every independent state was represented, and in 2011 South Sudan joined as the 193rd member state.

The structure of the United Nations

The United Nations has six main organs:

• General Assembly: the central deliberative body made up of representatives of all member states. It can discuss and make recommendations on any subject within the scope of the Charter.
• Security Council: a 15 member body with the primary responsibility of maintaining peace and stability. It has permanent and non permanent members.
• Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC): responsible for economic and social matters. It has 54 members elected by the General Assembly for overlapping three year terms.
• Trusteeship Council: made up of the five permanent members of the Security Council, set up to supervise the administration of trust territories.
• International Court of Justice: the principal judicial organ of the UN. It has 15 judges elected to nine year terms by the General Assembly and the Security Council voting independently.
• Secretariat: the administrative arm of the organisation. It is headed by a Secretary General appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council for a five year, renewable term.

The UN also works through many specialised agencies. Social and economic issues are handled by bodies including:

• World Health Organisation (WHO)
• United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
• United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
• United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)

The League of Nations

The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose main mission was to maintain world peace. It was officially formalised on 10 January 1920.

It was founded after the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. In 1919, US President Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as the leading architect of the League.

Reform of the UN after the Cold War

Reform and improvement are essential for any organisation that has to serve the needs of a changing world.

The UN faced two basic kinds of reform:

• Reform of the organisation's structures and processes.
• A review of the issues that fall within the jurisdiction of the organisation.

The biggest debate has been about the Security Council. There have been demands to increase its permanent and non permanent membership so that the realities of contemporary world politics are better reflected.

There are proposals to increase membership from Asia, Africa and South America. The US and other Western countries want improvements in the UN's budget procedures and administration.

Many leaders have pointed out that the UN was more than seventy five years old, and the way it was organised still reflected the balance of power right after the Second World War, even though that balance has since changed.

What changes did the world face after the Cold War?

The end of the Cold War transformed world politics:

• The Soviet Union collapsed, and the US became the strongest power. The relationship between Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, and the US became much more cooperative.
• China was rapidly emerging as a great power, and India was also growing quickly.
• The economies of Asia were growing at an unprecedented rate.
• Many new countries joined the UN as they became independent from the Soviet Union or former communist states in eastern Europe.
• A whole new set of challenges confronted the world: genocide, civil war, ethnic conflict, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, environmental degradation and epidemics.

What reforms are needed to make the UN work better?

In 1992 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution that reflected three main complaints:

• The Security Council no longer represents contemporary political realities.
• Its decisions reflect only Western values and interests and are dominated by a few powers.
• It lacks equitable representation.

How should new Security Council members be chosen?

Several criteria have been proposed for choosing new permanent and non permanent members of the Security Council. It has been suggested that a new member should be:

• A major economic power.
• A major military power.
• A substantial contributor to the UN budget.
• A large nation in terms of population.
• A nation that respects democracy and human rights.
• A country that would make the Council more representative of the world's diversity in geography, economic systems and culture.

Depending on their own interests and ambitions, different governments saw advantages in some criteria and disadvantages in others. Countries could see that the criteria were problematic even if they had no wish to be members themselves.

There are five permanent members and ten non permanent members on the Security Council. The Charter gave the permanent members a special position in the post war world so that they could help bring stability.

Permanency and veto power are the main benefits of the five permanent members. Non permanent members serve for a maximum of two years before being replaced by newly elected members.

After completing a two year term, a country cannot be re elected immediately. Non permanent members are chosen so that all of the world's continents are represented. They do not have veto power.

What is the veto power?

The Security Council makes decisions by voting, and every member has one vote.

Permanent members can cast a negative vote, so even if all the other permanent and non permanent members vote in favour, a single negative vote from a permanent member can block the decision.

This negative vote is the veto. There has been talk of abolishing or changing the veto, but the permanent members are unlikely to agree to such a change.

Jurisdiction of the UN

Membership is a serious question, but there are also larger issues before the world. As the UN completed 60 years of its existence, the heads of all member states met in September 2005 to mark the anniversary and review the situation.

The leaders agreed that the following steps should be taken to make the UN more relevant:

• Creation of a Peacebuilding Commission.
• Acceptance that the international community has a responsibility to act when national governments fail to protect their own citizens from atrocities.
• Establishment of a Human Rights Council (operational since 19 June 2006).
• Agreements to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
• Condemnation of terrorism in all its forms.
• Creation of a Democracy Fund.
• An agreement to wind up the Trusteeship Council.

India and UN reforms

India has supported UN reform for many reasons. It wants a stronger and more effective UN in a changing world order.

India believes the UN should do more to promote development and cooperation between states, and that development is a precondition for lasting peace and security.

India's main concern is the composition of the Security Council, which has stayed largely unchanged while the General Assembly has grown a great deal. India argues that this has harmed how representative the Council is.

India also argues that a larger Council with more representation would enjoy wider international support.

In 1965 the UN Security Council grew from 11 to 15 members, but the number of permanent members stayed the same, and the size of the Council has not changed since.

Developing countries now make up the majority of General Assembly members. India therefore believes it should have a stronger say in Security Council decisions.

Because Council action needs the support of the international community, India argues for adding more permanent and non permanent members. India also wants a permanent seat for itself.

Why India sees itself as a strong candidate for permanent membership:

• India is the world's most populous country, with nearly a fifth of the world's people.
• It is the world's most populous democracy.
• It has taken part in almost every major UN initiative.
• It has a long and important record in UN peacekeeping.
• Its economy has risen sharply on the global stage, and it has made regular financial contributions to the UN without ever defaulting.

India recognises the symbolic value of permanent membership, which signals a country's rising global standing.

India wants to be a permanent member of the Security Council, but some countries doubt whether it should have veto power. Some point to its long dispute with Pakistan. Others argue that admitting India would force the Council to accommodate other emerging powers such as Brazil, Germany, Japan and possibly South Africa.

Some also argue that permanent membership should be expanded to include Africa and South America, the only unrepresented continents. Given these reservations, gaining permanent membership remains difficult for India or anyone else.

The UN in the unipolar world

Some countries hope that reform will help the UN deal with a unipolar world in which the US is the most powerful country with no serious rivals.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world's sole superpower. Its military and economic might allow it to bypass the UN and other international organisations when it chooses.

The US holds considerable power within the UN. It is the largest single donor, and the fact that the UN headquarters sits on US soil gives Washington extra leverage.

The US has many nationals in the UN bureaucracy and can block actions that harm its own interests or those of its allies.

The power and veto of the US within the organisation mean that Washington has a big say in the choice of the UN Secretary General.

The US can use this power to divide opinion and reduce opposition to its policies, so the UN offers only a weak counterbalance to American power.

At the same time, the UN can and does bring the US and the rest of the world together to discuss shared problems. Despite frequently criticising the UN, US leaders accept that it serves a purpose by bringing more than 190 countries together to deal with conflict and with social and economic development.

The UN also provides a forum where other states can argue against particular US policies and push for compromises, even though genuinely balancing US power remains almost impossible.

The United Nations and the Russia Ukraine war

The Russia Ukraine war, which began in 2022, created a serious test for the UN. The organisation had already been strained by recent crises, including the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the Covid 19 pandemic.

The UN's inability first to prevent the war and then to end it exposed the limits of its power to secure peace, protect human rights and deliver humanitarian relief.

This was the first major military confrontation in Europe since the Second World War, and the UN was unable to stop the humanitarian and refugee crisis that followed, in which millions of Ukrainians were displaced and millions more became refugees.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres himself, in his address on the organisation's 75th anniversary in 2020, admitted that the UN often lacks the ambition, political will and unity among member states needed to overcome major crises.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Headquarters: Washington DC.

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organisation that oversees the global financial system and its rules.
• The IMF has 184 member countries, but they do not have equal representation.
• The top ten countries hold about 55 per cent of the votes.
• They include the members of the G8: the US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Canada and Russia.
• The US alone has around 17.4 per cent of the voting rights.

The World Bank

The World Bank was established in 1945, shortly after the Second World War ended. Its work is focused mainly on developing countries.

It works on human development (education and health), agriculture and rural development (irrigation and rural services), environmental protection (reducing pollution and setting rules), infrastructure (roads, urban renewal and electricity) and governance (fighting corruption and building legal institutions).

• It makes loans and grants to member countries, and so has a significant influence on the economic policies of developing countries.
• It is often criticised for dictating the economic agendas of poorer countries, imposing strict loan conditions and pushing free market reforms.

World Trade Organisation (WTO)

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is an international organisation that sets the rules for global trade.

It was established in 1995 as the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which had been set up after the Second World War.

It has around 150 member countries. Although decisions are meant to be made by consensus, major economic powers such as the United States, the European Union and Japan have been able to use the WTO to frame trade rules in ways that advance their own interests.

Developing countries frequently complain about opaque procedures and about being pressured by the major powers.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957.

It was set up to carry forward US President Dwight Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" proposal.

Its goal is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy while discouraging its use for military purposes.

IAEA teams regularly inspect nuclear facilities around the world to check that civilian reactors are not being used to build weapons.

Why it still matters

These notes may read like history, but the biggest question in them, whether the UN Security Council still fits the modern world, is being argued over right now. This is exactly where your syllabus meets today's headlines, and it is a good example of how the study of international relations connects textbook facts to live events.

On 22 September 2024, world leaders adopted a document called the Pact for the Future at the UN in New York. For the first time in decades, it committed governments to make the Security Council more representative, inclusive and accountable, and it named the under representation of Africa as a wrong that needs correcting.

India is at the centre of this push. In April 2025 the G4 group, made up of India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, tabled a reform model that would expand the Council from 15 members to 25 or 26, with 11 permanent seats instead of the current 5. Their plan sets aside two of the new permanent seats for African countries, alongside seats for Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe. This is the same demand for wider representation that the notes above describe, now written down as a concrete proposal.

Progress, though, is painfully slow. On 28 July 2026 the General Assembly again decided simply to keep the talks going into its next session. India's representative pointed out that these negotiations have already run through 17 cycles with, in his words, "no liberation in sight." The reason is the very veto the notes explain: any of the five permanent members can block a change that reduces their own privileged position.

Meanwhile, the non permanent rotation you studied keeps turning. In June 2025 the General Assembly elected five new non permanent members for the 2026 to 2027 term: Bahrain, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Latvia and Liberia. And the deadlock over Ukraine and Gaza, where vetoes have repeatedly stopped the Council from acting, keeps proving the critics' point about a body designed in 1945 struggling with the crises of today. When you revise this chapter, you are really revising an argument that is still unsettled. To follow more current debates like this, explore the Learnacy Hub, and browse related study notes in our resources library.

Sources

1. United Nations, General Assembly press release, 28 July 2026: https://press.un.org/en/2026/ga12774.doc.htm
2. The Print, on the G4 reform model for the UN Security Council, April 2025: https://theprint.in/diplomacy/what-are-the-reforms-proposed-by-india-its-g4-partners-for-united-nations-security-council/2591808/
3. UN News, "Five countries elected to serve on UN Security Council", June 2025: https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1163971
4. DW News, "UN Security Council: Beyond reform?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-GMrHkCvhY