Lifting the corporate veil: The responsibility of international organizations and their member states

This thesis aims to contribute to closing the responsibility gap in international law, which is characterized by a lack of remedies against international organizations and their member states. International courts and tribunals typically do not have jurisdiction to adjudicate claims against international organizations, which also enjoy far-reaching immunity before domestic courts. Member states are not held responsible for the acts of an international organization due to its separate international legal personality. Part I on ‘The Corporate Veil’ discusses the relationship between international organizations, their member states and third parties based on the concept of the corporate veil. In their internal relations with their member states, international organizations are agents of their members, which grant the organization autonomy through a constitutional framework. In their external relations with third parties, those internal relations are cloaked by a corporate veil, and the principal-agent relationship may be reversed. Part II applies the concept of the corporate veil to the determination of ‘Wrongfulness’ in the law of international responsibility. Based on the mutual agency relationships between international organizations and their members, it examines different rules and principles, as elaborated by the pertinent codification projects, that relate to situations of lifting and piercing the corporate veil of an international organization. Part III on ‘Responsibility’ considers the procedural and substantive remedies available to injured parties. The recognition that international organizations and their members regularly incur shared responsibility, based on their mutual agency relationships, is an important factor in understanding and increasing the remedial avenues for injured parties.