international organisations

This page considers secret-keeping, sharing and the accountability of international organisations such as the ICRC, ICANN and World Bank.

It covers -

• introduction
• regimes
• studies

     regimes 

As the above notes suggest, there is no international convention regarding freedom of information that is binding on all states or on international institutions such as the World Bank, the United Nations General Assembly, World Trade Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization or ICANN.

Release of non-public information by those organisations is thus essentially at their discretion. The absence of systematic access is of concern, given arguments that international organisations have assumed some responsibilities of national governments, questions about recourse if they act inappropriately and suggestions that some organisations are markedly inefficient or even corrupt.

Some bodies have moved to articulate objectives for the release of documentation or implemented effective access regimes (eg that embrace statements of principle about transparency that are underpinned by mechanisms such as information access centres, catalogues and an avoidance of unnecessary access charges).

They include -

the World Bank | policy here

World Trade Organization | policy here

International Monetary Fund | briefing here

Asian Development Bank | policy here

     studies 

Questions of the interaction of national and international regimes are highlighted in Colin Bennett's concise Globalization & Access to Information Regimes report, Alasdair Roberts' Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2006) and the 2001 Supranational Governance & the Right to Information: Experience in the EU (PDF) by Alasdair Davidson.

  next page  (private secrets)