James5

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or to email alerts. Thanks for visiting!

Over the winter I visited Geneva for two weeks studying Institutions in International Law, this post is part of a series on what I learnt and thought about the institutions we visited. See them all here.

The job of the Secretariat of an international institution is to provide administrative support to the institution. This means it provides information, studies and research to allow the institution to carry on its functions, organises the conferences and meetings of the Members, consults with Members, helps to resolve disputes, and sometimes provides assistance for Members who need it.

Some Secretariats are well-known and relatively interventionist, the WTO and UN Secretariats come to mind as high-profile bodies who drive a great deal of policy making and action within their institutions. For example, the UN Secretary-General, under Kofi Annan, produced the Peoples’ Report in 2000 which ultimately led to the Millennium Declaration.

There’s debate over the autonomy given to some Secretariats, whether they should be allowed to actively pursue their own agenda or should be restrained by the Members’ wishes. This obviously raises issues of accountability and good governance if an unelected Secretariat is shaping and pushing the agenda of an institution.

Perhaps one of the crucial most roles for the Secretariat, however, is to act as the ‘institutional memory’ of an international institution. Whereas, Member representatives may come and go, the Secretariat’s staff is relatively stable. It is the Secretariat who know the procedure and how things work. They know intimately the history of an organisation, what is realistic and what is unachievable. This role is critical to the proper functioning of any institution.

What the Secretariat does ultimately demonstrate, is that these institutions are more then just the some of their Members. That they aren’t just forums for discussion and negotiation of certain issues. Rather they are actors in their own right, and who is in charge can make a real difference to the direction and results of the work of the institution.

Popularity: 7% [?]