Special Thematic Forum on ‘The Wider United Nations System: Subsidiary Organs, Specialised Agencies, and Related Organisations at a Time of Strain’.
As the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law (UNYB) marks its 30th anniversary, the forthcoming volume will feature a special thematic forum examining a central yet relatively under-explored dimension of international law in practice: the structure, functioning, and evolution of the diverse institutions and entities that comprise the wider United Nations (UN) system, including subsidiary organs, specialised agencies, related organisations, and other components of the broader UN-centred multilateral framework.
Contemporary debates on the law and practice of the UN frequently focus on its six principal organs. Yet the wider UN system encompasses a diverse constellation of subsidiary organs, specialised agencies, funds and programmes, treaty bodies, commissions, and related organisations that are indispensable to the functioning of the multilateral international order. From human rights treaty bodies to specialised regimes governing global health, trade, development, labour, migration, and disarmament, these institutions operate alongside the principal organs of the UN Organisation and play a critical role in the interpretation, application, and development of international law. They serve as sites of norm development, implementation, monitoring, and compliance, while facilitating international cooperation across a broad range of policy areas.
Despite their centrality, comparatively little scholarly attention has been devoted to the institutional relationships that bind these bodies together. While individual organisations and regimes have generated extensive scholarship, considerably less attention has been paid to the wider UN system as an integrated institutional architecture. How do the various components of the system coordinate their activities, manage overlapping mandates, and respond to shared challenges? Through what formal and informal mechanisms do they cooperate, compete, or resolve institutional tensions? How are responsibilities allocated across institutions, and what role do these interactions play in shaping the interpretation, development, and implementation of international law? Understanding the wider UN system as an interconnected institutional ecosystem, rather than as a collection of discrete organisations, offers important insights into the coherence, adaptability, and resilience of contemporary multilateral governance.
The forum therefore seeks to explore, among others, the following overarching question:
To what extent do the diverse institutions and entities that comprise the wider United Nations system remain effective and resilient in advancing their mandates, and how might their institutional design, inter-institutional relationships, and normative role evolve in response to contemporary global challenges?
The forum invites contributions that critically examine the institutional, doctrinal, and normative dimensions of the wider UN system. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding the wider UN system as an interconnected institutional architecture, examining how its constituent bodies coordinate, interact, and collectively shape the development and practice of international law.[1]
Contributors are encouraged to engage with a broad range of themes, including but not limited to:
- Institutional law questions relating to specialised agencies, subsidiary organs, treaty bodies, funds and programmes, commissions, and related organisations;
- The evolving role of human rights bodies, including the Human Rights Council and treaty body mechanisms, in conditions of political contestation and selective engagement by States;
- Institutional responses to geopolitical fragmentation, including the impact of State withdrawal, disengagement, or strategic participation;
- The political economy of the wider UN system, including the role of funding structures and donor influence in shaping institutional priorities and effectiveness;
- Institutional interaction across the wider UN system, including questions of coordination, coherence, fragmentation, overlapping mandates, and regime complexity;
- The capacity of different components of the UN system to generate, interpret, implement, and diffuse international legal norms in the absence of strong political consensus;
- Historical, doctrinal, or theoretical reflections on the evolution of the wider United Nations system and its contemporary relevance.
Submission Guidelines
We invite anyone interested in contributing to this edition to submit at first instance, an abstract proposal of no more than 500 words by 28 August. Authors are encouraged to focus closely on a particular line of legal argumentation within this broader topic.
In your abstract submission, please include i) the working title; ii) the institution(s) that you will be examining in your article; iii) the main arguments to be developed; and iv) a brief explanation of how the topic fits within the scope of the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law. Please submit your proposal in a Word document, along with a short bio appended at the end of it (max 100 words) by email to .
The usual length of an article featured in the Yearbook is between 8,000 and 14,000 words, though for this thematic forum, we are also open to receiving proposals of opinion notes with a shorter word count as well. Following a positive assessment of their abstract proposal, authors will be instructed to submit a full draft of their manuscript by 15 November, which will then be placed through our double-blind peer-review process for consideration of final publication.
In addition to featuring manuscripts pertaining to the thematic scope of this volume, we will also be featuring selected articles that fall within the overall editorial line of the Yearbook, on issues connected with the UN and its initiatives. As such, we encourage authors to send in their proposals for consideration in accordance with the same deadline and requirements indicated above.
[1] For a comprehensive overview of the UN system, please see here.