Regional Organizations

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Regional Organizations

Regional Organisations (ROs) are in a sense international organizations(IOs), as they incorporate international membership and encompass geo-political 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 blocks. They have been established to foster cooperation and political and economic integration or dialogue amongst states or entities within a restrictive geographical or geopolitical boundary. They both reflect common patters of development and history that have been fostered since the end of the second world war as well as the fragmentation inherent in globalization. Most ROs tend to work alongside well-established multilateral organizations such as the United Nations.^[1] While in many instances a regional organizations are simply referred as international organizations, in many other it makes sense to use the ROs term to stress the more limited scope of a particular membership.

Examples of ROs include the African Union (AU), European Union (EU), the Organization of American States (OAS), and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).