International Institutions and Global Regimes — UPSC International Relations Notes

1. Origins and Purposes

Successor to the League of Nations (1920), which failed to prevent the Second World War; the name 'United Nations' was first used in the Declaration by United Nations (1 January 1942), which India signed.

Article 1 purposes: maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations based on equal rights and self-determination, achieve cooperation on economic, social and humanitarian problems, and promote human rights.

Key principles: sovereign equality, peaceful settlement of disputes, prohibition of the threat or use of force (Article 2(4)) and non-intervention in domestic matters (Article 2(7)); the inherent right of self-defence is preserved by Article 51.

2. The Six Principal Organs

General Assembly (UNGA): All 193 members, one vote each; important questions need a two-thirds majority; resolutions are recommendatory except on budget and internal matters.

Security Council (UNSC): 15 members, 5 permanent with veto; its decisions under Chapter VII (sanctions, use of force) bind all members.

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC): 54 members elected for three years; coordinates economic, social and development work and grants consultative status to NGOs.

Trusteeship Council: Suspended operations in 1994 after Palau, the last trust territory, became independent.

International Court of Justice (ICJ): At The Hague; 15 judges elected for nine years by the UNGA and UNSC; decides disputes between states and gives advisory opinions (India won the Kulbhushan Jadhav case against Pakistan in 2019).

Secretariat: Headed by the Secretary-General, appointed by the UNGA on the UNSC's recommendation for a five-year term; António Guterres's second term ends on 31 December 2026.

3. Specialised Agencies, Funds and Programmes

Specialised agencies are autonomous bodies linked by agreement with ECOSOC: e.g. ILO (1919, Geneva), FAO (Rome), UNESCO (Paris), WHO (Geneva), ICAO (Montreal), IMO (London), ITU (Geneva), WIPO (Geneva), IFAD (Rome); the IMF and World Bank are also specialised agencies.

Funds and programmes report to the UNGA/ECOSOC: UNDP, UNICEF, UNEP (Nairobi), WFP, UNFPA, UNHCR, UN-Habitat; related organisations include the IAEA and the WTO.

4. UN Peacekeeping and India

Peacekeeping is not named in the Charter; it rests between Chapter VI (peaceful settlement) and Chapter VII, hence called 'Chapter VI and a half'. Principles: consent of parties, impartiality, and non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate.

India has taken part in peacekeeping since the Korean War (1950s) and is among the largest cumulative troop contributors; it deployed the first all-women Formed Police Unit in Liberia (2007) and runs the Centre for UN Peacekeeping in New Delhi.

India's concerns: troop-contributing countries have little say in drafting mandates; safety of peacekeepers; mandates often exceed resources.

5. India at the UN

Raised apartheid in South Africa (1946) and pushed decolonisation and disarmament; championed the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (proposed 1996, still not adopted because states disagree on defining terrorism).

Eight terms on the UNSC (most recently 2021–22, when it chaired the Counter-Terrorism Committee in 2022); the International Day of Yoga (21 June) and the International Year of Millets (2023) were adopted on India's proposals.

6. Challenges Facing the UN

Veto paralysis over Ukraine and Gaza; the 'veto initiative' (UNGA resolution, April 2022) now requires the Assembly to meet whenever a veto is cast. The 'Uniting for Peace' resolution (1950) lets the UNGA act when the UNSC is deadlocked.

Financial strain from unpaid or delayed assessed contributions and cuts in voluntary funding, which led the Secretary-General to launch the UN80 Initiative (2025) for efficiency and restructuring.

Rise of minilaterals and great-power rivalry; a legitimacy gap because the UNSC reflects 1945 power realities (see the topic on UN reforms).

Practice

UPSC-style: 'The United Nations has been more successful as a forum for development cooperation than as a guarantor of peace.' Critically examine with reference to India's experience.

1. From GATT to WTO

GATT (1947) was a provisional agreement on goods; eight rounds of talks cut tariffs. The Uruguay Round (1986–94) created the WTO, covering goods (GATT 1994), services (GATS), intellectual property (TRIPS) and investment measures (TRIMs).

Headquarters in Geneva; 166 members; India is a founding member of both GATT and the WTO.

Core principles: Most-Favoured-Nation (non-discrimination between trading partners), National Treatment (no discrimination between imported and domestic goods), binding of tariffs, transparency, and special and differential treatment (S&DT) for developing countries.

2. Agriculture and Public Stockholding

The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) classifies subsidies into boxes: Amber (trade-distorting, capped), Blue (production-limiting) and Green (minimally distorting, not capped).

Developing countries may give Amber Box support up to a de minimis level of 10% of the value of production. India's MSP procurement counts as market price support, calculated against an outdated 1986–88 external reference price, which inflates the measured subsidy.

The Bali 'Peace Clause' (MC9, 2013), made open-ended by a 2014 General Council decision, shields public stockholding programmes from legal challenge until a permanent solution is found; India first invoked it for rice in 2020.

India also seeks a Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) to protect farmers against import surges; at MC14 it again pressed for a permanent solution and the SSM without success.

3. Fisheries Subsidies

The Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (MC12, Geneva, 2022) bans subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, fishing of overfished stocks and fishing on the unregulated high seas; it entered into force in September 2025.

The second phase on subsidies causing overcapacity and overfishing remains unfinished. India wants big distant-water fishing nations to bear the main burden, a 25-year transition for developing countries and a permanent carve-out for small-scale and artisanal fishers. At MC14 members only agreed to keep negotiating towards MC15.

4. Dispute Settlement Crisis

The two-tier system (panels plus a seven-member Appellate Body) has been crippled since December 2019, when US blocking of appointments left the Body without a quorum; appeals now go 'into the void'.

Some members use the interim MPIA (Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement); India has not joined it and wants the Appellate Body restored.

India's notable disputes: the US challenge to India's solar mission local-content rules (India lost, 2016); sugar subsidy cases by Brazil, Australia and Guatemala (panel ruled against India in 2021; India appealed); EU and others on ICT tariffs.

5. Other Issues for India

E-commerce moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions: India argues it costs developing countries tariff revenue and policy space.

Plurilaterals such as Investment Facilitation for Development: India opposes bringing them into the WTO without consensus, as this undermines multilateralism.

Non-trade issues such as labour and environment standards and carbon border taxes (e.g. the EU's CBAM) are seen by India as disguised protectionism.

India co-sponsored with South Africa (2020) the proposal for a TRIPS waiver on COVID-19 vaccines; MC12 agreed a narrower waiver for vaccine patents.

Practice

UPSC-style: 'The WTO's crisis is a crisis of multilateralism itself.' Discuss India's stakes in reviving the WTO, with reference to public stockholding and dispute settlement.

1. IMF: Role and Structure

HQ in Washington, D.C.; 191 members. Functions: surveillance (Article IV consultations, World Economic Outlook), lending (Stand-By Arrangements, Extended Fund Facility, Rapid Financing Instrument) and capacity development.

A member's quota decides its subscription, its voting power and its access to financing. Major decisions need an 85% supermajority; the US, with about 16.5% of votes, can block them.

Special Drawing Rights (SDR): an international reserve asset valued on a basket of five currencies—US dollar, euro, Chinese renminbi, Japanese yen and British pound. A general SDR allocation of about USD 650 billion was made in 2021 to fight the COVID-19 shock.

By convention the IMF Managing Director is a European and the World Bank President an American—an arrangement emerging economies criticise.

2. Quota Reform

The 14th General Review (2010), effective only in 2016 after US Congressional delay, shifted about 6% of quota share to dynamic emerging economies; India entered the top ten shareholders.

India's quota share is about 2.75%, far below its share of world GDP in purchasing-power terms. India heads a constituency with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka on the Executive Board.

The 16th General Review (December 2023) agreed a uniform 50% quota increase without changing shares. It needs consent from members holding 85% of quotas; as of late 2025 consents were short of that threshold and the deadline was extended. Realignment of shares was deferred to future reviews.

3. World Bank Group

Five institutions: IBRD (loans to middle-income countries), IDA (concessional loans and grants to the poorest), IFC (private sector), MIGA (political-risk guarantees) and ICSID (investment disputes). India is a member of all except ICSID.

India was historically the largest cumulative borrower from IDA and graduated from IDA in 2014; it now borrows from the IBRD and contributes to IDA.

The World Bank Evolution Roadmap (from 2023) adds climate, pandemics and other global public goods to its mission of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity on a liveable planet.

4. India and the Bretton Woods Institutions

The 1991 balance-of-payments crisis led India to IMF support, linked to stabilisation and structural reforms (liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation). India has not needed an IMF programme since.

Under its G20 presidency (2023), India commissioned an Independent Expert Group (co-convened by Lawrence Summers and N.K. Singh) on strengthening MDBs, which called for much larger lending capacity and a 'triple agenda' of ending extreme poverty, boosting shared prosperity and providing global public goods.

India also backs institutions that complement the Bretton Woods system: the BRICS New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), where India is the second-largest shareholder after China.

5. Criticisms

Conditionality (austerity, privatisation) under the 'Washington Consensus' was blamed for social costs in Latin America, Africa and the 1997 Asian crisis.

Governance deficit: under-representation of Asia and Africa; the leadership convention; slow quota reform.

Debt distress in low-income countries (Zambia, Ghana) and the Sri Lankan default show the slow working of the G20 Common Framework and debt restructuring.

Practice

UPSC-style: 'Reform of the Bretton Woods institutions is essential for their legitimacy in a multipolar world.' Examine India's position.

1. Structure and Functions

World Health Assembly (WHA): All member states; meets every May in Geneva; elects the Director-General and approves the budget. Executive Board: 34 health experts. Six regional offices; the South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO) is in New Delhi.

Functions: setting norms and standards, declaring Public Health Emergencies of International Concern (PHEIC), prequalifying vaccines and medicines, the Essential Medicines List, and campaigns such as smallpox eradication (certified 1980) and polio eradication.

Funding: assessed contributions (membership dues) form a small share; most funds are voluntary and earmarked by donors, which limits WHO's independence. Members agreed in 2022 to raise assessed contributions gradually to half the base budget.

2. International Health Regulations (IHR)

The IHR (2005) are binding rules requiring states to build surveillance capacity and report events that may be a PHEIC.

2024 amendments (in force from September 2025) add a higher alert level, the 'pandemic emergency', stress equitable access to health products, and set up National IHR Authorities.

3. The WHO Pandemic Agreement

Adopted by the 78th WHA on 20 May 2025 under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution—only the second such treaty after the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2003).

Key elements: a One Health approach to prevention, technology transfer on mutually agreed terms, a global supply chain and logistics network, and a target that manufacturers make about 20% of real-time production of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics available to WHO during a pandemic (half as donations).

It explicitly does not give WHO power to order lockdowns, vaccine mandates or travel bans—national sovereignty is preserved.

The treaty opens for signature only after the PABS annex (sharing pathogen samples and genetic data in return for fair sharing of benefits such as vaccines) is adopted. The 79th WHA (May 2026) did not finalise it and extended negotiations, with the result to go to the 80th WHA or an earlier special session.

4. US Withdrawal and Funding Crisis

The US, historically WHO's largest donor, announced withdrawal in January 2025; it took effect in January 2026. WHO has cut its budget and staff and is seeking new donors.

5. India and Global Health

The 'pharmacy of the world': a major supplier of generic medicines and vaccines; Vaccine Maitri (2021) supplied COVID-19 vaccines to many countries, and India backed COVAX.

Hosts the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine at Jamnagar, Gujarat (foundation stone laid in 2022), the first such global centre.

India's priorities: equitable access, technology transfer and local manufacturing, protecting the TRIPS flexibilities that sustain its generics industry, and a balanced PABS system.

Domestic links: Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission and the National One Health Mission; WHO validated India as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem in 2024.

Practice

UPSC-style: 'COVID-19 showed that global health security is only as strong as its weakest link.' Evaluate the WHO Pandemic Agreement in this light.

1. The IAEA

Set up in 1957 (inspired by Eisenhower's 'Atoms for Peace' speech, 1953); HQ Vienna; reports to the UNGA and UNSC. India is a founding member.

Roles: promoting peaceful uses (power, medicine, agriculture), nuclear safety and security, and safeguards—inspections to verify that nuclear material is not diverted to weapons.

India signed an India-specific Safeguards Agreement (2008) covering civilian facilities it chose to declare, and its Additional Protocol entered into force in 2014; military facilities remain outside safeguards.

2. The NPT

Opened for signature in 1968, in force from 1970, made permanent in 1995; nearly universal (191 parties). Recognises only five nuclear-weapon states—those that tested before 1 January 1967 (US, Russia, UK, France, China).

Three pillars: non-proliferation, disarmament (Article VI obliges good-faith negotiations) and peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Non-parties: India, Pakistan, Israel and South Sudan; North Korea announced withdrawal in 2003.

Review Conferences every five years: the last consensus outcome was in 2010; the 2015, 2022 and 2026 conferences all ended without a final document (the 2026 meeting closed in May amid disputes over disarmament and Iran).

3. CTBT and Other Instruments

CTBT (1996) bans all nuclear explosions, but has not entered into force because several of the 44 'Annex 2' states (including the US, China, India and Pakistan) have not ratified or signed it. The CTBTO's International Monitoring System is already working.

Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW, 2017): in force since January 2021; no nuclear-armed state, including India, has joined.

A Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) has been stalled for decades at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva; India supports negotiating a non-discriminatory, verifiable FMCT there.

New START, the last US–Russia treaty limiting strategic arsenals, expired in February 2026 without a replacement.

4. India's Position and Doctrine

India rejects the NPT and CTBT as creating 'nuclear apartheid'—a permanent division into haves and have-nots—while backing universal, non-discriminatory disarmament (Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan, 1988).

Tests: Pokhran-I (1974), described as a 'peaceful nuclear explosion', and Pokhran-II (1998), after which India declared a voluntary moratorium on testing.

Nuclear doctrine (2003): credible minimum deterrence; No First Use, with no use against non-nuclear-weapon states; massive retaliation causing unacceptable damage; civilian control through the Nuclear Command Authority (Political Council chaired by the Prime Minister); the option of a nuclear response to a major biological or chemical attack.

Mainstreaming: India–US civil nuclear deal (2005–08) and the NSG waiver (September 2008) allowed civil nuclear trade without NPT membership; agreements followed with France, Russia, Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan and Japan.

India has completed its nuclear triad with the SSBN INS Arihant, and passed the WMD Act (2005) to control proliferation-sensitive exports.

Practice

UPSC-style: 'India's non-signature of the NPT has not prevented its integration into the global nuclear order.' Discuss.

1. Why Export Controls Matter

Many technologies are dual-use: valves, centrifuges, rocket engines, chemicals and software used in civilian industry can also serve weapons programmes. Regimes share control lists and information so that suppliers deny such items to proliferators.

Decisions are by consensus; guidelines are implemented through each member's national laws. Membership signals that a country is a trusted supplier and eases access to high technology.

2. Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)

Formed in 1974–75 (first met in London, hence the 'London Club') as a reaction to India's 1974 nuclear test; 48 participating governments.

Controls nuclear materials, equipment and technology (Part 1) and nuclear-related dual-use items (Part 2); requires full-scope safeguards for supplies to non-nuclear-weapon states.

The September 2008 'clean waiver' exempted India from the full-scope safeguards requirement. India applied for membership in May 2016; China (with a few others earlier) opposes admission of non-NPT states without agreed criteria, often linking India's bid to Pakistan's.

3. Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)

Created in 1987 by the G7 to limit the spread of unmanned delivery systems for WMD; covers missiles and drones able to carry a 500 kg payload over 300 km (Category I).

India became the 35th member in June 2016. Benefits: easier access to high-end missile and drone technology (e.g. armed drones from the US) and the ability to export systems like BrahMos (sold to the Philippines). China is not a member.

India also subscribed to the Hague Code of Conduct against ballistic missile proliferation (2016).

4. Wassenaar Arrangement

Set up in 1996 (successor to the Cold War CoCom), Secretariat in Vienna; covers conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies through Munitions and Dual-Use Lists.

India joined in December 2017 as the 42nd participating state. China is not a member.

5. Australia Group

Formed in 1985 after Iraq's use of chemical weapons in the Iran–Iraq war; harmonises controls on chemical and biological weapons precursors and equipment, supporting the Chemical Weapons Convention (1993) and Biological Weapons Convention (1972).

India joined in January 2018 as the 43rd participant.

6. India's National System

The SCOMET list (Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies) under the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992, and the WMD and their Delivery Systems Act, 2005 (amended 2022 to criminalise financing of WMD) align India with regime lists.

The US granted India Strategic Trade Authorisation-1 (STA-1) status in 2018, partly because of its membership of three of the four regimes.

Practice

UPSC-style: 'Membership of export control regimes is as much about technology access as about non-proliferation.' Discuss with reference to India's NSG bid.