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So, while doing some research on on the World Health Organization (WHO), I noticed it had a constitution.

I found this weird, because I always had associated the word "Constitution" with countries, not organizations. For instance, the United States has a Constitution, as do many others too numerous to list here.

It's my understanding that the WHO is an organization (hence, the o in its name) and is a part of the United Nations, not a sovereign nation. So why exactly does it have a constitution? Why exactly do they choose this word, as opposed to something like "bylaws" instead?

Edit: I seem to have drawn some confusion on what I'm asking here. I'm not asking for the dictionary definition of "Constitution." I'm what about it makes it a "Constitution." Is that just the name that they chose, or is there another reason?

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  • "A constitution is a framework for government, and serves as a set of founding principles for the entity." - entity, not county.
    – Martin Schröder
    Commented Apr 18, 2020 at 0:02
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    Other UN specialized agencies have one too, e.g. the FAO and the ILO.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Apr 18, 2020 at 0:06
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    @Relaxed: it would in fact be a more interesting q if any UN org sub-org uses a different term. The IMF calls its thing a "charter" informally (fromally it's Articles of Agreement).
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Apr 18, 2020 at 2:42
  • The use of the term might be related to brill.com/view/title/16385
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Apr 18, 2020 at 2:50
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    I’m voting to close this question because it seems to be a basic language question, answerable with a dictioanry.
    – James K
    Commented Apr 18, 2020 at 8:15

1 Answer 1

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Wikipedia states that:

A constitution is an aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity, and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. ...

A treaty which establishes an international organization is also its constitution, in that it would define how that organization is constituted.

So, although the most famous constitutions are all for states, it is not a requirement. Any organization built around a set of fundamental principles can have a constitution.

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