Breaking the deadlock of regional bloc politics: Cross-regional coalitions and human rights in the UNGA

Abstract

Let us begin with a simple question: what ‘regions’ are we talking about? The membership of the UN Organisation is divided into five regional constituencies from which representative states are nominated to serve on the various bodies where membership is restricted - such as the Security Council, ECOSOC and the Human Rights Council. Alternatively, a region can be a self-selected and exclusive group of states with economic, political or ideational ties. Regional organisations such as the European Union (EU), MERCOSUR or Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) clearly fit this definition as having limited membership set predominantly, but not exclusively, by geographic criteria. Much has been written about the relationship between these sorts of regional organisation and universal organisations such as the UN, its specialised agencies or the World Trade Organisation. There are three dominant theoretical perspectives on their relationship. The first, federalism, advocates the principal of subsidiary in which regional organisations serve specific political purposes that neither universal organisations, nor nation states, can adequately do. The second, functionalism, regards regional organisations as stepping stones towards universal membership of universal organisations and is concerned with the ‘administration of things, not the governance of men’ (Mitrany 1943). A third way of understanding the relationship between regional and universal organisations is to see regional organisations supersede their member states as the primary actors at the world level, which is neofunctional in intellectual ancestry.