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By 'major' I mean organizations that have more than half of the total number of UN states participating and/or all five of the permanent members.

By intergovernmental organization, I mean any body that has a budget, regular staff, and official recognition by the above number of countries whether via ratification, signatories, memorandums, etc. Ideally for it to count all participating countries must pay dues to it in some form. Though this information may be too hard to source.

To count as separate organizations there should be some degree of autonomy.

Some of my research:

There's this list on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intergovernmental_organizations

But it includes many organizations only of a regional nature.

There's also the Yearbook of International Organizations: https://uia.org/yearbook/

But they include many NGOs as well.

The minimum number is the total number of organizations associated with the UN system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_System

Which gives 60+ organizations, depending on how they're counted. Yet organizations like the WTO exist outside the UN system and are also clearly major intergovernmental organizations.

In other words, how many such organizations are there beyond the UN system?

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  • "organizations like the WTO exist outside the UN system": the WTO is not entirely outside the UN system. According to the UN System chart, the WTO is a "related organisation" with a seat on the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination.
    – phoog
    Commented Sep 17, 2022 at 8:02
  • @phoog the WTO is not obligated to send any reports or answer to any orders from any UN organ. i.e. they have fully separate legal basis. Which is why I say it's outside of it. If either party chooses to, they can make the relationship completely autonomous.
    – M. Y. Zuo
    Commented Sep 17, 2022 at 17:01
  • Counting issues are very significant and drive the outcome. The proper definition (including the case of the WTO) was a hotly debated issue when I was an editor at the Michigan Journal of International Law.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Sep 19, 2022 at 23:05
  • @ohwilleke As far as I understand, there is no ambiguity in regards to the legal distinction, maybe in practice they share office space somewhere.
    – M. Y. Zuo
    Commented Sep 21, 2022 at 16:49
  • @M.Y.Zuo The boundaries of the UN system are quite ambiguous and ill-defined, because lots of international organizations aren't functionally connected to the U.N. but U.N. diplomats play a major role in establishing them. There is also a serious ambiguity over what does and does not constitute an "organization". For example, does a regularly held international conference like Davos count?
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Sep 21, 2022 at 18:15

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