Abstract In his article entitled ‘Statehood and International Organization: Rethinking Their Conceptual Relationship with Reference to Customary International Law’, Orfeas Chasapis Tassinis aims to reconceptualize how international organizations relate to the ‘outside world’ with a focus on the applicability and formation of customary international law. This reply challenges his dismissal of some of the established ways of thinking about international organizations, including the use of analogies with states and corporations. The reply argues that those established ways are largely capable of reaching the same results as Chasapis Tassinis’ framework. Although the use of analogies has clear limitations, it can explain why international organizations are bound by customary international law in the same way as states. In fact, by characterizing international organizations in terms of political communities, Chasapis Tassinis’ framework inevitably has an internal focus, which has limited added value in explaining which customary international law applies to them in their external relations. A look behind the corporate veil of international organizations may be necessary to determine how they contribute to the formation of custom. However, by suggesting that the practice of organs composed of member states should only count as state practice, the article risks undermining the distinct will of international organizations, which is the crucial condition for their international legal personality.
Christiane Ahlborn (Mon,) studied this question.