S/P/112. ‘International Organisations are not independent actors; they are merely the instruments of their most powerful members’. Discuss

To explore this theme one must firstly determine what affects International Organisations have had upon states and their national interests, and more crucially if it is fundamentally possible for an organisation to act on decisions made, truly independently of its members. Secondly, one must determine whether individual states have been able to pursue their own national interests disregarding others under the banner of an international organisation to legitimate their actions. Through doing this one could qualify the true ability of an international organisation to be independent whilst exposing examples of members using them simply as another instrument in their foreign policy arsenal.