Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Lorenzo Casini & Benedict Kingsbury

This special issue of the International Organizations Law Review presents extensively revised versions of papers delivered during the March 2009 Geneva GAL conference. Authors include academics and leading practitioners and officers from different international organizations and diplomatic services. They deal with topics such as: public/private partnerships of IOs; legal process, participation, and mandate issues in international organizations activities; actions by IO leaders in responding to emergencies; accountability and immunities in international organizations; and human rights and GAL in the headquarters and field operations of international organizations. The majority present perspectives of practitioners, including several papers by participants in field operations. We hope this collection of articles is found by readers to represent a distinctive contribution to the literature, and that these papers will be a useful resource for both practitioners and academics in confronting these challenging and under-studied issues.