This course will provide postgraduate students with a detailed and comprehensive understanding of the roles and responsibilities of key formal organisations in world politics, including states, intergovernmental organizations, multinational corporations and international financial institutions. It will foster the skills necessary to critically engage with charges of delinquency made with respect to these organizations in the context of a series of case studies. The case studies to be explored in this course will include the following: the UN’s acts and omissions in response to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the current crisis in Syria; BP and the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill; Shell Oil and the 1995 Ogoni Crisis in Nigeria; and central banks, international financial institutions and credit rating agencies in the context of the global financial crisis.

Students will address themes of institutional responsibility, accountability and reform and will critically engage with the controversial themes of institutional punishment and learning. The current debates over the duties and failures of organizations in world politics with respect to inter alia the global financial crisis and the UN-endorsed responsibility to protect make this a crucial and timely topic for those with an interest in government, the military and business.