The new edition of this established reference work provides a comprehensive and balanced guide to international institutions. Highlighting the challenges of globalization and the newly-emerging powers on the world scene, the A-Z section of approx. 250 organizations provides detailed information on their origin, purpose, activities and role.

The European Union has been one of the most vocal advocates of ‘sustainable development’, particularly in its dealings with developing countries. Even prior to the formulation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the EU has insisted upon the need for sustainable approaches to poverty reduction and economic growth in the Global South. When examining EU relations with African countries as part of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group, however, it becomes clear that the translation of Europe’s sustainability discourse into practice is highly problematic. Notably, there are concerns that the EU’s free market approach to development – embodied in its EPA trade deals – is incompatible with genuine, pro-poor forms of sustainable growth. Moreover, the EU is often seen as a hegemonic actor whose trade and aid interventions in Africa often do more to perpetuate poverty than to ameliorate it. This book casts a critical light on Africa-EU relations with regards to the EU’s sustainability pledges. It does this through looking at an array of issues – not least trade, aid, the environment, and democratic institutions. In this vein, the book poses a challenge to EU trade and development discourse in the era of the UN SDGs. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal.

Dramatic changes in the world order since 1992 - the continuing struggle in the former Yugoslavia, the creation of the World Trade Organization, the tentative steps towards European Union - have led to major revisions of Professor Schiavone's International Organizations . New entries, including the G-7, G-24, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have been added. On the 50th anniversary of the UN special annexes on peace-keeping agencies and major resolutions are now included. The introductory essay contains an overall view of the basic features of the law of international organizations and a survey of their historical development and outstanding problems, helping the reader to set the organizations in their proper context, be it global or sectional. The main body of the book consists of alphabetically arranged entries for over 200 organizations - from the UN to specialised agencies and regional bodies in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Each entry is broken up into sub-headings such as Purpose, Structure, Origin and Development, and Activities. Specific data concerning addresses, principal officers, main periodic publications and a short list of works of reference are provided with each entry. Ease of access to all entries is expedited by an index of acronyms and full names. Membership charts, a table of foundation dates and a classified index complete the volume.

A region victimized by natural hazards, soil erosion, overpopulation and gunboat diplomacy is portrayed in this examination of successive waves of colonization of the Caribbean and the effects on its peoples over the past 500 years.