The social mandate of international organizations: what promises of coherence?

Summary The structure of UN multilateralism had made it problematic from the start. But its gradual splintering into a bipolar Janus, coupled with the evolution of the general economic creed, itself contemporaneous with political and economic globalization, has been increasingly visible as a threat to the pursuit of the social agenda in its domestic and international incarnations. There is general agreement that the range of responses includes the acceleration of efforts that have remained rhetorical for too long, in order to establish the conditions for effective coherence of the solutions promoted by the institutional components of the so-called UN "system". Human rights, international labor law, social protection and governance are all fields where options born of authentic integrative approaches are seeking to emerge.