International Organisations have affected all of us in our daily lives, no matter we realize it or not. Hence, every enlightened citizen of his own country and of the world ought to have knowledge of their role, functioning, system, and above all their relevance in the modern world. The loss of several million lives in the First World War showed the necessity for an international organisation so as to establish peace in the entire world. With this aim the League of Nations—later succeeded by the United Nations—was formed.
Over the past few years there has been a significant increase in the efforts of developing countries to achieve regional economic integration. In various parts of the developing world, existing regional arrangements have been revitalised or expanded and new groupings formed. This book is not intended as a general history of International organisations because such histories are available in much greater details than that could be attempted here. It is rather a description and a brief overview of the United Nations system and other major international and regional organisations of the world like the Amnesty International, G-77, the International Criminal Court, apec, oecd, opec, nam, nafta, The Commonwealth, wco, iom, eu, asean, saarc, interpol, etc.
This book would be found most useful by the scholars of Political Science, Public Administration, International Relations and others. It would also appeal to the general readers keen to know about the recent global developments and strategies adopted by the various international organisations across the world.
Sonu Trivedi has been a student of Political Science at Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi and moved into African studies programme at the M.Phil. level to have a wider understanding of issues relating to international relations. In the process of finalising her M.Phil. dissertation, her work relating to regional organisations in Africa (COMESA-Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) developed her interest in the origin and functioning of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). This led her to pursue her Ph.D. in Southeast Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University where she is working on a dissertation relating to Democracy and Authoritarianism: Comparative Study of Myanmar and Indonesia. She has contributed articles to several national and international journals and magazines and is currently working on a second book in the area of Indian Foreign Policy.
