All international organizations exist in the conceptual and legal space between state sovereignty and legal obligation. They are built on a dilemma: they are created out of the commitments that sovereign states make to each other, and at the same time their reason for existing is to limit the choices of those same governments. They make use of the sovereign prerogatives of states in order to shape how those states use their sovereignty in the future. This chapter examines three forces in world politics: the commitments states make to international organizations, the choices states make regarding compliance and noncompliance with those commitments, and the powers of enforcement held by each international organization.

In 1997, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Jody Williams were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize ‘for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines’.

The chapter argues that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is best understood, not as a third instance of post–Cold War humanitarian disarmament treaty but rather as the culmination of over 70 years campaigning against nuclear weapons. The chapter explores selected campaigns over those decades to explain the way in which they can fit within the rubric ‘humanitarian disarmament’. Two aspects of those campaigns stand out as instances of humanitarian disarmament: the first is the way in which the anti-nuclear campaigns were based on human health and environmental concerns from the beginning and the second is the pivotal role that civil society played in the campaigns from the very beginning. The immediate lead up to the TPNW is discussed in detail and two aspects of the treaty are discussed: first, the victim assistance provisions and how they differ from those in the preceding Convention on Cluster Munitions and second, the way in which the General Assembly (the negotiating forum) asserted its role in nuclear disarmament.

The chapter explains the background to, and the key elements of, the Convention on Cluster Munitions 2008 (CCM) and examines some of the parallels between this treaty and its immediate predecessor, the Anti-personnel Landmines Convention. It argues that while the CCM is a consolidation of humanitarian disarmament in some important respects, its negotiation, formulation and implementation reveal some complexities in the theory and practice of humanitarian disarmament. The chapter explains how the way cluster munitions are defined in the treaty has essentially reversed the burden of proof in terms of showing unacceptable harm being wrought by a weapon. In this respect, the treaty is a significant advance in the practice of humanitarian disarmament. However, it is also troubling in some respects most notably its weak provisions on user state responsibility and more onerous obligations being placed on victim states. More than ten years on from its conclusion, it is not clear that it has been a resounding success in terms of on-going use of cluster munitions and the slow rate of clearance of unexploded munitions.

The chapter traces the emergence of transnational humanitarianism and efforts towards disarmament from the nineteenth century through to the outbreak of the Second World War. It explores the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as exercises in humanitarian disarmament, and the neglected but significant work of the League of Nations. In studying the League’s legacy of humanitarian disarmament, a number of initiatives are explored including the ambitious but ultimately doomed Disarmament Conference 1932–1934, the creation and work of the League’s Temporary Mixed Commission on Armaments and its Permanent Armaments Commission, and the negotiation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

It is often said that since World War II we have been living in a rules-based international order built upon international institutions and the rule of law. This is the system that is said to be in crisis today as non-believers in global governance have become more powerful. This chapter gives a way to think about these big forces in global politics and history and their influence on international organizations: it is certainly true that rules and institutions exist and are powerful, but it is also true that the ways in which these are evaded, misused, and violated are as important as the ways they are respected, followed, and complied with. A reasonable understanding of international organizations requires paying attention to both of these, and to do that we first need a set of conceptual tools that suit the task.