When considering ways for preventing Member States from hiding behind the institutional veil of the organization, two distinct approaches can be identified. The first focuses on the position of the Member State as a subject endowed with its own distinct personality and holder of its own rights and obligations. According to this approach, when the State acts as a member within or on behalf of the organization, it continues to be bound by its obligations and may be held individually responsible for their breach. The second approach focuses on the position of the State qua member of the organization. It relies on the institutional link binding together the organization and its members to affirm that, under certain circumstances, all members should be called upon to bear the consequences of the wrongful acts of the organization in a collective way. While much of the debate on the risk of abuse of the organization’s institutional veil tends to focus on the question of collective responsibility of members, the chapter argues that in practice it is through different forms of individual responsibility that the organization’s institutional veil has been pierced or circumvented.

The Introduction provides an overview of the four streams of thought about the legal significance of resolutions. It shows that General Assembly resolutions do not fit the paradigm of Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice and, in any case, the traditional signposts contained in that provision do not explain the basis of legal obligation in the contemporary international society. It provides an argument for developing an empirically grounded analysis of how resolutions acquire legal significance in different contexts through state practice. It subsequently outlines the structure of the analysis, which culminates with the formulation of an original theory of legal significance of resolutions. The latter develops in three different contexts – namely, at the adoption stage, within domestic law and in international practice.