This research conducts a study on the role global crises play within processes of international legal change through a comprehensive examination of how, under which conditions, and to what extent international organizations develop their activities and functioning in times of crises. I argue that functional textual instrument-based explanations are not sufficient. Other factors are key to gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, the conditions that facilitate such evolutions, as well as the scale, levels, and manifestations of cross-institutional dialectic dynamics. In order to achieve these objectives, the research considers a major global crisis seen through the lens of two international organizations.