Working Papers A Manageable World: Taking Hold of the International Public Sector Shepard Forman Center on International Cooperation New York University Defining the International Public Sector Multilateral cooperation has been a hallmark of the 20th Century, an historic reckoning of the nation state with a growing number of transnational economic, social and security issues and increased interstate interdependence. During the last hundred years, and especially since World War II, sovereign countries acceded to thousands of bilateral and multilateral treaties and established layers of global and regional organizations to monitor these agreements and to fulfill their goals. By the beginning of this new century, over two thousand multilateral agreements had been negotiated and more than 1800 intergovernmental bodies were operating at various levels of vitality. [1] This broad pattern of post-war international policy set in motion a development of profound global importance: the gradual emergence of a substantial international public sector that today affects virtually every aspect of international affairs and domestic well being around the globe. [2] The composition of this international public sector is heterogeneous and evolving. It consists of a broad array of institutions and actors that set the legal and normative framework for the conduct of international affairs and also provide a range of goods and services on which people around the world have come to depend. These institutions range from larger global organizations that are household names, such as the UN and the World Bank, to small, somewhat obscure regional organizations consisting of just a few member countries, such as the West African Health Community. Together with a rapidly growing number of non-governmental and private sector organizations, they provide the frameworks and processes for functional international cooperation in diverse fields, ranging from peace and security to trade and finance, environmental management, human rights, education, law enforcement, health, science and technology, and the use of the global commons. Download a PDF of the entire paper