Transparency as a Contested Fundamental in the Law of International Organizations

Against the backdrop of a recent turn to theory in the field of international organizations law this short article, part of the Special Forum on Contested Fundamentals of the Law of International Organizations, brings to the fore a characteristic of the international organization that should not be missing in the canon of fundamentals in international organizations scholarship. This is the transparency of international organizations as a legal entity and as a legal actor. ‘Transparency’ here refers to the phenomenon that member states and other institutional components are to some extent legally visible. ‘Legally visible’ means that the component parts of an organization, notably the member states, are addressed from, and involved in, the general international plane – a condition which is dynamic and context-dependent. In the words of the ila, organizations are layered creatures, ‘conducting … multilevel operations’. The article sets out how the transparency of organizations is a fundamental in two ways: as a legal-ontological claim, and as an analytical lens. Moreover the transparency of international organizations is subject to systemic and political contestation, albeit often in an implicit manner. The article concludes by arguing that the lens of transparency has lasting relevance and analytical value, as it helps to lay bare an elusive and continual dynamic in the legal manifestation of international organizations.