International organizations are becoming increasingly powerful. Today, they affect the lives of individuals across the globe through their decisions and conduct. Consequently, international organizations are more capable of violating the human rights of individuals. But how can they be held to account for such violations? This book studies the procedural mechanisms that may hold international organizations to account for their human rights violations. It establishes a general framework for identifying, analyzing, and assessing the accountability mechanisms of international organizations. This general framework is then applied to three distinct cases: the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy missions, refugee camp administration by the UNHCR, and detention by the International Criminal Court. The overall conclusion is that none of the existing accountability mechanisms across the three cases fulfill the normative requirements set out in the general framework. However, there are significant variations between cases, and between different types of accountability mechanisms.
- Establishes a framework for analyzing and assessing accountability mechanisms of international organizations that can be used to study the accountability mechanisms of any international organization
- Contains three in-depth cases studies of situations where international organizations wield significant powers over individuals, providing readers with detailed knowledge of understudied accountability mechanisms
- Shines light on the fact that international organizations may be human rights violators and the difficulties in holding them to account
