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the emergence of legal personality and the development of its powers. The UN is neither a ‘super-state’ nor simply a ‘talking shop’, but does it have sufficient autonomy to become a type of ‘Frankenstein’s monster’, whereby the creature becomes more powerful than its creator? 32 Klabbers provocatively raises this spectre at the front of his textbook, 33 but a detailed assessment of the metaphor is given by Guzman: States sometimes create their own form of artificial life, the international organization (IO). Dr Frankenstein created his monster in an attempt
and custom-making, but it is not acting like the leviathan or Frankenstein’s monster of Gothic imagination. As Talmon points out: ‘The Charter does not establish the Council as an omnicompetent world legislator but, rather, as a single issue legislator’. 39 Furthermore, ‘Council legislation is always emergency legislation’, 40 aimed at filling gaps in the law revealed by threats caused by terrorism and other developments. After 9/11 the Security Council legislated to plug the gaps in international laws by preventing support for terrorism caused by the failure of
) . 63 Guzman represents one scholar who thinks states have delegated too little authority. See Andrew Guzman, “International and the Frankenstein Problem,” 24 Eur. J. Int’l L. 999 (2013) . 64 See Liesbet Hooghe et al., Measuring International Authority: A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance (2017). 65 For development of this thesis, see Michael Zurn et al., “International Authority and its Politicization,” 4
When states create an IGO that has autonomy from them, have they, like Dr Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s gothic horror story, created a monster that they cannot control, or have states created something compliant that they (or maybe the most powerful of them) can utilise to serve their purposes? The relationship between member states and an IGO is a difficult one politically and legally. In legal terms the tension is caused by the fact that states have normally established a legally separate entity which, depending upon its competence and the extent of its
’ is a neutral choice in contrast with the original phrase ‘enhanced’ man which hints at an improvement. 10 RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, USA, 1987), starring Peter Weller and Nancy Allen. Followed by RoboCop 2 (Irvin Kershner, USA, 1990) and 3 (Fred Dekker, USA, 1993); in a way it is a reinterpration of Frankenstein’s creature. 11 Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, USA, 1997) starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Sweet satire of films milking, in a frightening way, the theme of invaders, but also of conspiracy theories that suppose the presence of world