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Posthumous festschrift in honour of late professor R.O. Ezeuko, edited by Dr. Odinye, Egenti & Orji 

 

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UN RESOLUTIONS AND THE EMERGENCE OF SUBSIDIARY AGENCIES IN THE 

20TH CENTURY 

Onuegbu, Festus C. 

Department of History and International Studies 

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka 

  Email: Onuegbufestus@rocketmail.com 

 

Abstract 

Arguably, the United Nations has always been looked at as ‘the most competent 

and credible international platform’ that has continued to effectively exist, so to 

say, to initiate meaningful actions towards tackling the multivariate challenges 

confronting the international system and humanity in general since its inception in 

1945. The organization, inundated with this enormous but no less intriguing task, 

has on many occasions, with the instrumentality of its diplomatic machinery, 

passed noble ‘resolutions’ in form of purposive recommendations to ensure 

committed collaboration, corporation, and consensus among states in areas of 

critical international concern. Thus, these resolutions that bring nation-states into 

a common undertaking in specific areas of global interest consequently usher in 

regimes in those areas with emergence of ancillary or subsidiary agencies to the 

UN. It is against this backdrop that this paper, taking the path of the functionalist 

theoretical construct as the relevant framework of analysis, attempts to examine 

the circumstances and the underpinning variables that informed the emergence of 

these subsidiary agencies to UN, and the dynamics that predicate their continued 

international existence. Although, it is strongly contended that their emergence is 

functional to peace and stability universally, their inherent drawbacks cannot be 

vaguely denied. Therefore, the advocacy is that states should put in more 

diplomatic commitments and international sacrifices devoid of ‘high politics’ and 

less consideration of ‘sovereignty bigotry’ in order to improve on universal peace 

and global understanding. 

 

Keywords: Resolution, Regimes, Concensus, Funcitonalism, Sovereignty. 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

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1.0 Introduction  

No doubt, the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 accorded nation states their status 

with the concept of inviolability of territorial sovereignty as a major defining 

parameter. However, as these emergent nation-states began to enjoy their 

sovereign existence, the protection and defense of this very sovereignty became 

strategically inevitable. Many nation-states, in fragrant disregard of ‘mutual co-

existence’ of one another, had often been embroiled in wars and other forms of 

conflicts that have been at heavy cost to international peace and security. As 

Holsti (2002:38) notes, “war and threat of it have become a fashionable 

instrument states resort to in achieving their policy goals in international arena”. 

Thus, the preoccupation of states in war and conflicts denies them the needed 

attention to engage themselves meaningfully in compromise and consensual 

cooperation, hence there are mutual but challenging grounds that require 

cooperation and diplomacy other than war and conflicts. Thoughtfully, the 

emergence of the United Nations at the end of World War II in 1945 was 

primarily occasioned by the vagaries of war and the need to maintain global peace 

and security. 

No sooner the UN began to man this arduous task of preventing further war and 

maintain international security for global peace and stability than it came to the 

realization and identification of other challenging problems, other than war, that 

constitute major threat to universal peace, which if unaddressed could plunge the 

international system into a web of insecurity and wars, and mar the very 

foundation and mission of the UN. “This broadening of the mandate and oversight 

capacity of the UN”, according to Benneth (1988:26) “came with the 

understanding that many challenging problems faced by states in this 

interdependent world cannot be resolved by sovereign independent state action 

only anchored on the vestiges of ‘traditional sovereignty’. Rather, there is the 

overriding need for concerted efforts of these states in form of international 

consensus and cooperation with great commitments. Brown (2005:120) 

enumerates these critical areas other than war itself to include issues of human 

rights, global environment, international trade and world economy, disarmament 

and weapons proliferations, migration and refugee question, development and 

democracy issue, outer space and sea resources, terrorism, and so on. 



 

 

 

 

 

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The United Nations, in trying to coordinate and regulate the behavior and actions 

of states in these areas of international concern has adopted several ‘resolutions’ 

and ‘conventions’ in many organized fora to ensure commitments and co-

operation of states thereof. Many of these UN resolutions and conventions are 

today part of international law, and some of them have metamorphosed into 

institutionalized subsidiary agencies of the UN. Hence Umozuruike (2005:6) 

notes: 

Resolutions and conventions serve as international morality and agreements 

which are left on the moral will of the states to be obeyed or not to be obeyed; 

thence constant usage and further diplomatic protocols on them transform them 

into part of the working document of international law or/and, existing operational 

agencies of regulatory character. 

That is to say, many of the UN resolutions have established regimes in different 

areas of international engagement. However, it is important to point out that not 

all resolutions and conventions of the UN have been institutionally transformed 

into working agencies. Many of them are still subsisting as ‘mere international 

morality’ and some as existing document of international law that have not, and 

may not emerge as subsidiary institution of the UN. In this light, how the 

institution of UN and her resolution instruments predicated the emergence of 

subsidiary international organizations and agencies engages this study. However, 

this cannot be done effectively without a relevant theoretical framework of 

analysis. 

2.0 Theoretical Foundation 

For better understanding of the background and the rationale behind the 

emergence of the United Nations subsidiary agencies as international institutions, 

functionalist theoretical tool of analysis becomes most appropriately relevant 

framework. It emerged in the international political scholarship in the 1940’s, and 

was developed by David Mitrany. It has attracted many other scholars like Joseph 

Nye, Ernest Hass,J.P Sewell, Paul Taylor, A. J R  Groom, John Burton, 

Christopher Mitchell and Banks. 

Functionalism assumes that a ‘working universal peace is constructed by 

encouraging forms of co-operation among states which by-passed formal, but 



 

 

 

 

 

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traditional, sovereignty and, limits the capacity of these states to act as sovereigns. 

‘Ordered, stable, and peaceful world is a function of cooperation among severing 

states on several specific ‘issues-areas’ which are of common interest to them’ 

(Mitrany, 1985). Thus, there are technical problems that challenge the continued 

existence of sovereign states, and which are beyond their individual capacity to 

curb. In this context, cooperation of states with an ‘institutional character’ is 

imperative. Taylor and Haas (1998:113) contend that the functional institutions 

must exchange information of technical nature, and be vested with power of 

decision to gradually transcend the states’ sovereignty. In otherwords, the 

underlying assumption is that the problems functional cooperation is supposed to 

solve are essentially ‘disaggregated’ and technical, and need a technical solution. 

This heavily borrows from the pluralist and complex interdependent schools that 

see relationship as a ‘disaggregation’ rather than as one ‘whole’. The contention is 

that different ‘issue-areas’ such as security, finance, environment, human rights, 

or terrorism display different modes of mutual dependence among nations, 

(Keohane and Nye, 1987).  

The proponents of functionalist school see progress made in any specific but 

disaggregated ‘issue-area’ in international system as a direct function of 

collaboration and commitment of states in moderation of their sovereignty (Olson, 

20000).  Thus, the intention of functionalism is to achieve ‘global stability’ and 

‘order’ through ‘global governance’ and not ‘global government’; hence, the 

‘debordering of states’ that is sought by globalization is crucial here. 

Nevertheless, this analytical construct as an effective tool of analysis bears some 

inadequacies in its rationale of assumptions: (a) its rationality that states would 

always be willing to compromise their sovereignty and cooperate with others; (b) 

the assumption that the administration of technical problems by functional and 

collaborative institutions is devoid of national politics of states; (c) and its firm 

belief that every cooperation produces functional institution that cuts beyond 

states ‘boundaries’. However, it still remains most elaborate and ambitious 

attempt made not just to understand the growth of international institutions, but 

also to plot their trajectory into the future, and to come to terms with the 

implications. 

 



 

 

 

 

 

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3.0 UN Resolutions and the Emergence of Subsidiary Agencies 

It is obvious, since its creation in 1945, the United Nations has diplomatically 

established many subsidiary ‘agencies’ in response to many challenges 

confronting the world, and which demand serious attention. ‘These agencies, so to 

say, are ‘collaboratory’, ‘advisory’, and ‘regulatory in character, and operate on 

either ‘permanent’ or ad hoc’ basis. They are created to take charge of, and 

address issues in specific areas and ensure international diplomatic cooperation 

thereof, (Harret, 2000:86). In otherwords, they are specific purpose oriented and 

they ensure diplomatic compliance, cooperation and commitment of states in their 

areas of operations. As a matter of focus and convenience, the paper cannot 

discuss all the subsidiary agencies that took their establishment from the United 

Nations ‘resolutions’ but rather select some cases in the issues-areas of 

‘disarmament’, ‘environment’, human rights’, and trade in terms of their 

emergence and continued existence. 

3.1 Disarmament Question 

Apparently, there is a mutual relationship between ‘arms control’ and 

‘disarmament’ on one hand and ‘international peace’ and ‘security’, on the other 

hand. This is recognized and acknowledged in the United Nations Charter by its 

founding fathers. It is against this backdrop that Article (11) of the United Nations 

Charter charges the General Assembly with ‘the responsibility for considering 

principles of cooperation relating to the maintenance of international peace and 

security, including the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of 

armaments’, and making recommendations    with regards to such principles to 

the members of the security council, or to both’. Secondly, the Security Council is 

charged with ‘the responsibility of formulating plans to be submitted to the 

members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the 

regulations of armaments’, (www.un.org/charter.documents ). 

However, the destructive acquisition of lethal weapons by states that culminated 

to the devastating second world war, and the regrettable utilization of the 

Manhattan Project (atomic bombs) by the United States against Hiroshima and 

Nagasaki in Japan in the immediate aftermath of the war, coupled with the Soviet 

Union’s test of her atomic bomb in early 1947 seriously called the attention of the 

nascent United Nations institution on how best to pursue disarmament. 

http://www.un.org/charter.documents


 

 

 

 

 

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Responding to these threatening challenge, the United Nations on 24th January 

1946 passed a ‘resolution which called for the establishment  of an Atomic 

Energy Agency to put forward proposals for the elimination of, from all national 

armaments, atomic weapons and all other weapons qualified for mass destruction, 

(Dunne, 2006). After much diplomatic heat raised by the competing forces of 

‘United States-sponsored Baruch Plan’ and ‘Soviet Union-sponsored Gromyko 

counter Plan’, the United Nations, in much favour to the Baruch plan, established 

‘the Atomic Energy Commission in July, 1946. 

On December 14, 1946, the United Nations adopted resolution 41(1) which called 

for Security Council’s consideration of a ‘draft convention’ for the creation of an 

international system of control and inspection, and for the prohibition of atomic 

weapons and other weapons of mass destructions. This led to the emergence of 

‘the Commission of Conventional Armaments in 1947. However, on 11th January, 

1952 the United Nations’ General Assembly adopted ‘resolution 502(vii) merging 

the Atomic Energy Commission and the Commission on Conventional 

Armaments into one agency known as ‘the Disarmament Commission. As Vogts 

(1980) argues, “the ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet 

Union derailed the efficacy of this commission”. The Disarmament Commission 

ceased to exist in 1956, and ‘the Ten Nations Committee on Disarmament 

supported by the General Assembly’s resolution 1378(xiv) of 20th November, 

1959, came up. In 1962, the Ten Nations Committee on Disarmament was 

increased to Eighteen Nations Committee on Disarmament. 

From November 1962, when the General Assembly adopted ‘resolution 

1762A(XVII) that prepared the way for the negotiation of ‘Partial Test Ban 

Treaty’ in 1963, to 1973 when two important resolutions-3093A and 3093B were 

adopted by the United Nation calling on the permanent Security  Council 

members to reduce their military budgets by 10 percent, many resolutions were 

adopted  by the United Nations in her pursuit of world disarmament. The striking 

example in this period was the one that informed the negotiation of ‘Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty of 1968’. In 1975 Conference on the Review on Non-

Proliferation Treaty, the need for a comprehensive test ban became obvious once 

again, and the adoption of ‘resolution 3484(XXXX) became necessary, calling for 

views of member states on the strengthening of the role of the United Nations in 

the  field of disarmament. This led to the setting up of Conference on the 

Committee on Disarmament in February, 1976. 



 

 

 

 

 

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Today, there is Disarmament Commission and the International Atomic Energy 

Agency, taking charge of general disarmament, and weapons verifications and 

nuclear investigations respectively. United Nations continues to adopt resolutions 

on the question of global disarmament in order to manage world security. Stone 

(2005) thus, contends that United Nations efforts towards disarmament would 

only be effective and enforceable when powerful and nuclear club nations will 

commit their loyalty to the process.  

3.2 The Challenge of Global Environment  

No doubt, the need for global sustainable development has, since the 1958 Law of 

the Sea Conventions, influenced the activities of the United Nations. Several 

‘resolutions’ adopted by the General Assembly on matters of environmental 

protection and safety have formed the basis for the emergence of World 

Commission on Environment and development: an agency of the United Nations 

set up in 1983 to propose advisory opinions and recommendations on issues 

bordering  on world environment. 

The race in space technology between the Soviet Union and the United States in 

the 1950s and 1960s drove the United Nations to pass some resolutions 

emphasizing the need to protect the outer space to ensure environmental safety, 

(Umozuruike, 2005). In 1961, resolution 1721(xvi) predicating that international 

law applies to ‘outer space’, and the outer space and celestial bodies are not 

subject to national appropriation. Resolution 1962(xviii) and 1885(xvii) of 1963 

further declared the legal principles governing the activities of states in the 

exploration and use of outer space. These two resolutions also exhort states not to 

orbit nuclear weapons around the earth surfaces. Thus, the Nuclear Test Ban 

Treaty of 1963 prohibits the explosion of nuclear weapons in outer space if it 

would cause radioactive debris outside the territory of the state exploding it. In 

1972 came the United Nations Convention on International Liability Damage 

Caused by Space Objects, and the Convention on Registration of Objects 

Launched into the Outer Space in 1976. 

In 1970, resolution 2749(xxiv) declared the ‘deep seabed’ was ‘the common 

heritage of all mankind, and laid down the principles of its future exploitation. 

The first international attempt to deal with the environment came at the 

Stockholm Conference in 1972. The Stockholm conference offered the ground for 



 

 

 

 

 

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the systematic extension of international cooperation, and the current practice of 

recommendations and directives for the utilization of rivers and oceans, control of 

pollution, and military uses of the environment, (Machowsky,1982). Thus, the 

United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) became established in 1972 

with Governing Council of 58 member states, an Environmental Co-ordination 

Board, and a small Secretariat based in Nairobi, Kenya. It facilitates and promotes 

the development of international law on environmental protection and 

preservation. All these efforts reflected in different United Nations’ resolutions in 

protection and preservation of the environment led to the establishment of World 

Commission on Environment and Development in 1983. Earlier in 1982, the 

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea made for the establishment of 

‘International Seabed Authority’. The authority would manage and control the 

exploitation of the resources in the interest of all mankind. The Montego Bay 

Convention envisioned the Authority to be based in Kingston, Jamaica while the 

Tribunal would be in Hamburg, Germany. 

However, the World Commission on Environment and Development, as a 

subsidiary agency of the United Nations, made its first report in 1987 setting out 

goals and recommendations in its area of mandate. Moreso, the Vienna 

Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer in 1985; and both the Montreal 

and London protocols on the same subject in 1987 and 1990 respectively are of 

major relevance thereafter. With the Earth Summit of 1992 in Rio de Geneiro, 

Brazil and Kyoto Protocol of 1997 calling for drastic reduction of emissions of 

carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent from the 1990s level, there is big hope for the 

emergence of a more effective agency in this direction, the failure of Copenhagen 

Summit in 2010 notwithstanding. 

3.3 Human Right Issues 

The 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights was a clear recognition of the 

need to safeguard and guarantee the rights of individuals against the arbitrariness 

of their states by the United Nations. More in this direction were the 1958 Geneva 

Convention on Human Rights and the 1968 Tehran Conference on Human Rights. 

In 1966, the General Assembly adopted the International Convention on Civil and 

Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural 

Rights through its ‘resolution’ 2200A/63 that came into force in 1976. The 

covenant set up a ’18-man Human Rights Committee’. The committee studied 



 

 

 

 

 

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reports submitted to it by states and gave expertise opinions to parties. It 

transmitted its reports and comments to the Economic and Social Council 

(ECOSOC) of the United Nations. As refugee question has become a major threat 

to human rights in conflict situations and disaster periods, the United Nations 

responded in this direction in 1974 with the adoption of resolution 3274(xxix) 

mandating the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to offer 

diplomatic protection to stateless persons (Fabunsi, 2000). It should be noted that 

the International Refugee Organization (IRO) was set-up under the United 

Nations but could not make much progress as a result of cold war rivalry. 

However, it was dissolved and the office of the United Nations High 

Commissioner for Refugee was created to take its place with extended powers, 

after the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees. Today, United Nations 

Human Rights Commission, and the Office of the Higher Commissioner for 

Refugee are subsidiary agencies of the United Nations. According to Alli (2000), 

the OHCHR is guided in its work by the charter of the United Nations, the 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, subsequent human rights instruments, 

and the 1993 Vienna Declaration. 

On the issues of the human rights as it relates to international law and 

humanitarian intervention, the United Nations has through its resolutions 

established international regimes against human rights abuses in form of crimes 

against humanity, genocide, rape, torture, and many other war crime related 

offences. Specifically on the war crimes, the United Nations in 1993 set up the 

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague. 

A year later, the International Criminal Tribunal for Nuremberg was established 

and the tribunal derived its precedent from the criminal tribunal for Japanese war 

leaders (NewAfrican, 2009). Also established was the International Criminal 

Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The ICTY and the ICTR were specifically drawn up 

to redress the atrocities and human rights abuses perpetrated in the former 

Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and the genocidal killings in Rwanda in 1994 

respectively. For effective trial and dispensation of justice the statutes of these 

special war crime tribunals were incorporated into the International Criminal 

Court (ICC) statutes in the Rome Treaty of 2000. ICC, as a subsidiary agency of 

the United Nations, started its operation in 2002. And there has been another 

special war crimes tribunal established in 2002 at Sierra Leone to try culprits of 

Liberia-Sierra Leonean human rights abuses. 



 

 

 

 

 

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Looking at the humanitarian intervention angle of safeguarding human  rights 

internationally, the United Nations right from the 1950 ‘uniting for peace 

resolution 377A’ in the Korean peninsular, has taken a major and sustained leap 

in establishing ad hoc intervention agencies or missions in troubled spots around 

the world where human rights are severely threatened. Several resolutions have 

been adopted by the United Nations in responding to crisis, leading to 

establishment of intervention missions in places like Somalia, Camboudia, former 

Yugoslavia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Sudan, Kosovo, 

Pakistan, Iraq, and Kuwait. However, from the indications observed at the 1993 

Vienna Human Rights World Conference that led to the establishment of the 

Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, it seems that one 

day the United Nations may establish a permanent military intervention force with 

a strong mandate to safeguarding international human rights. 

3.4 The Politics of Trade and Development Matters 

The role of the United Nations in the emergence of subsidiary agencies in trade 

and economic development matters globally cannot be easily left out in this nature 

of discussion. Since the creation of the United Nations, it has gone beyond the 

primary idea of maintaining peace and security to embrace challenges emanating 

from global economic inequality and trade imbalances. Initially, her efforts in this 

area were coordinated by Economic and Social Council, (ECOSOC). However, 

the emergence of newly independent states as members of the United Nations in 

the 1960s, mostly in the camp of Non Aligned countries, brought pressure to bear 

on her to go beyond the ‘mere coordination efforts of ECOSOC’ in addressing 

problems of economic nature. Although affiliate international organizations to the 

United Nations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank 

(IBRD) were making contributions in this area, the new demands of the third 

world nations needed genuine but radical shift in actions.  

Having recognized this new demand, the United Nations promoted the General 

Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947, after an earlier attempt to 

establish International Trade Organization failed, to negotiate trade terms between 

the developed nations and developing nations. The resolution adopted by the 

United Nations in 1964, which was strongly pushed by the block of 77 nations 

from the non-aligned camp, led to the establishment of United Nations 

Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) which is often called the 



 

 

 

 

 

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G77. In 1965, the United Nations decided to merge the United Nations Special 

Fund (SUNFED) and Expanded Programme on Technical Assistance (EPTA) into 

one body known as United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), as one of 

her subsidiary agencies, (Benneth, 1988). In the 1970s, the third world countries 

still demanding for “economic relations founded on equity and common interest 

of all states”, according to (Machowski, 1982), influenced the United Nations to 

adopt resolution  3201(S-V1) on May 1, 1974 entitled ‘Declaration on the 

Establishment of a New International Economic Order’ (NIEO). In December, 

1974 the United Nations adopted the ‘Charter on Economic Rights and Duties of 

States’. 

Nevertheless, after many ‘rounds of trade negotiations’ by GATT since its 

establishment without much successes as a result of divergent interests of the 

developed and developing nations, it wounded up in 1995 after the Uruguay 

round of trade negotiations, and became replaced with world Trade Organisation 

(WTO) in 1995. It is important to note that the need to fashion an equitable 

criteria for global economic relations is still very much dominant as the activities 

of most of the international economic and financial organizations are still met 

with protest march and stiff resistance from developing countries. However, the 

declaration of ‘Development Decades’ from 1960 to 1980s by the United Nations 

General Assembly and the harsh economic realities faced by the developing 

nations in the 1960s and 1970’s further accentuated their vehement urge for 

equity-ruled global economy and trade relations. 

4.0 Conclusion 

It is very clear that United Nations play important role in ensuring diplomatic 

cooperation in many ‘issue-areas’ other than its initial thrust of maintaining peace 

and global security. In doing this crucial but multivariate function, the United 

Nations makes ‘recommendations’ and ‘declarations’ in form of ‘resolutions’. 

These resolutions may transform into operational ad structural functional 

subsidiary agencies while some cannot go beyond ‘mere international morality or 

‘conventions’ as part of international law, (Umezuruike, 2005). The subsidiary 

agencies, so far created, can either be of international or ad hoc in structure and 

operation. The emerging agency may be envisioned to take diplomatic overtures 

in a given area or to add to, modify, further define, or broadening an already 

existing agency in that area of specificity. In most cases the United Nations 



 

 

 

 

 

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resolutions have encouraged the emergence of not only subsidiaries of universal 

character but also regional agencies; hence, the emergence of regional economic 

commissions, human right commissions, and charters attest to this claim. These 

agencies outside regimes, operate through ‘persuasion’ of, and ‘recommendation’ 

to states. They do not necessarily possess more power to enforce decisions on 

states.      

However, the subsidiary agencies of the United Nations have not smoothly and 

progressively tackled the problems they came to resolve. The reason may not be 

far-fetched. The vested interest of states especially the advanced nations has 

sometimes derailed the efficacy of those agencies and the strict observance of the 

resolutions. Thus, there is the prevalence of states pulling out of ‘treaties’ and 

repudiating ‘agreements’ once entered into, when their interest runs contrary to 

them. This has gone a long way to reducing the states’ capacity in mobilizing both 

technical and financial support these agencies need to maintain their continued 

effective operations. Despite these draw backs, with the presence of viable 

international civil societies and public opinions, ‘the epistemic communities’, the 

continued emergence of these agencies that seek diplomatic cooperation, 

collaboration, and consensual commitment of states will diminish the prevalence 

of conflicts in the world.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

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