Regional organizations (ROs) are, in a sense, international organizations (IOs), as they incorporate international membership and encompass geopolitical entities that operationally transcend a single nation state. However, their membership is characterized by boundaries and demarcations characteristic to a defined and unique geography, such as continents, or geopolitics, such as economic blocs. They have been established to foster cooperation and political and economic integration or dialogue among states or entities within a restrictive geographical or geopolitical boundary. They both reflect common patterns of development and history that have been fostered since the end of World War II as well as the fragmentation inherent in globalization, which is why their institutional characteristics vary from loose cooperation to formal regional integration. [1] Most ROs tend to work alongside well-established multilateral organizations such as the United Nations. [2] While in many instances a regional organization is simply referred to as an international organization, in many others it makes sense to use the term regional organization to stress the more limited scope of a particular membership.
Examples of ROs include, amongst others, theAfrican Union (AU), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Arab League (AL), Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Council of Europe (CoE), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), European Union (EU), South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization (AALCO), Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), Union of South American Nations (USAN).
ASEAN, officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia. The union has a total area of 4,522,518 km2 (1,746,154 sq mi) and an estimated total population of about 668 million, containing approximately 8.5% of the world population in 2021. ASEAN generated a purchasing power parity (PPP) gross domestic product (GDP) of around US$10.2 trillion in 2022, constituting approximately 6.5% of global GDP (PPP).
A trade bloc is a type of intergovernmental agreement, often part of a regional intergovernmental organization, where barriers to trade are reduced or eliminated among the participating states.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an inter-governmental organization headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana.
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet republics, and in Russia as the near abroad, are the 15 sovereign states that were union republics of the Soviet Union, which emerged and re-emerged from the Soviet Union following its dissolution in 1991.
The Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) is an intergovernmental organization created on 18 June 2002 to promote Asian cooperation at a continental level and to ensure coordination among different regional organizations such as the ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the SAARC. It is the first international organization to cover the whole of Asia. Its secretariat is in Kuwait City.
A continental union is a regional organization which facilitates pan-continental integration. Continental unions vary from collaborative intergovernmental organizations, to supranational politico-economic unions. Continental unions are a relatively new type of political entity in the history of human government. Throughout most of human history, political organization has been at the local level and in more recent centuries, the sub-regional ("regional")/sub-continental level ; however, starting with the advent of better transportation, weapons and communication there was for the first time the ability for a union of member states to organize at the continental level. After the devastation of the First and Second World Wars in the middle of the twentieth century, Europe began to slowly integrate with the founding of the "European Community", which became a political union covering much of the European continent.
Regional Integration is a process in which neighboring countries enter into an agreement in order to upgrade cooperation through common institutions and rules. The objectives of the agreement could range from economic to political to environmental, although it has typically taken the form of a political economy initiative where commercial interests are the focus for achieving broader socio-political and security objectives, as defined by national governments. Regional integration has been organized either via supranational institutional structures or through intergovernmental decision-making, or a combination of both.
The East Asia Summit (EAS) is a regional forum held annually by leaders of, initially, 16 countries in the East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian and Oceanian regions, based on the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism. Membership expanded to 18 countries including Russia and the United States at the Sixth EAS in 2011. Since its establishment, ASEAN has held the central role and leadership in the forum. EAS meetings are held after the annual ASEAN leaders' meetings, and plays an important role in the regional architecture of Asia-Pacific. The first summit was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 14 December 2005.
In international relations, regionalism is the expression of a common sense of identity and purpose combined with the creation and implementation of institutions that express a particular identity and shape collective action within a geographical region. Regionalism is one of the three constituents of the international commercial system.
The East Asian Community (EAC) is a proposed trade bloc for the East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) countries that may arise out of either ASEAN Plus Three or the East Asia Summit (EAS).
Cape Verde is an island nation, part of the Macaronesian group of islands of the Atlantic Ocean and was a Portuguese colony during the colonial era between 1460 and 1975. EU-Cape Verde relations are founded on the EU/Cape Verde Special Partnership, agreed in 2007, building on six pillars:
An international organization or international organisation, also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states and other actors in the international system. Organizations may be established by a treaty or be an instrument governed by international law and possessing its own legal personality, such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization and NATO. International organizations are composed of primarily member states, but may also include other entities, such as other international organizations, firms, and nongovernmental organizations. Additionally, entities may hold observer status.
Eurasia is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, physiographically, Eurasia is a single continent. The concepts of Europe and Asia as distinct continents date back to antiquity, but their borders are arbitrary and have historically been subject to change. Eurasia is connected to Africa at the Suez Canal, and the two are sometimes combined to describe the largest contiguous landmass on Earth, Afro-Eurasia.
Integration is a political and economic agreement among countries that gives preference to member countries to the agreement. General integration can be achieved in three different approachable ways: through the World Trade Organization (WTO), bilateral integration, and regional integration. In bilateral integration, only two countries economically cooperate with one another, whereas in regional integration, several countries within the same geographic distance become joint to form organizations such as the European Union (EU) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Indeed, factors of mobility like capital, technology and labour are indicating strategies for cross-national integration along with those mentioned above.
The Enlargement of the Associationof Southeast Asian Nations is the process of expanding the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) through the accession of new member states. This process began with ASEAN's five original members, who founded the association through the signing of the Bangkok Declaration in 1967. Since then, the ASEAN's membership has grown to ten with the accession of Cambodia in 1999.
Policies advocating Middle East economic integration aim to bring about peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East, which they believe can only be sustained over the long run via regional economic cooperation.