Subjects of International Law

Outline
• Definition
• International Legal Personality
• Subjects
• States
• International Organizations
• Non-self governing peoples & Indigenous peoples
• Insurgents and national liberation movements
• Individuals
• Territorial entities other than states
• Subjects sui generis
• Independent agencies created by IGOs
• Multinational enterprises
• Nature
Definition

A subject of international law is an entity that

possesses international rights, powers and/or
obligations
International Legal Personality (ILP)
Important Concepts
• ILP ≠ capacity to act in the international sphere/ capacity to bring a
claim
• Full vs Partial
• Objective vs Relative
• Original vs Derived
• Domestic vs International LP
States
• Possess full objective, original, international legal personality
• Montevideo Convention (1933), Art 1:
‘The state as a person of international law should possess the following
qualifications:
(a) a permanent population;
(b) a defined territory;
(c) government; and
(d) capacity to enter into legal regulations with the other states’.
• Principle of Effectiveness
• The role of Recognition – theories of statehood
• Additional aspects…illegality, self determination & extinction
Self determination & statehood
• All peoples have the right to freely determine their political status and
pursue their economic, social and cultural development
• Dismantling ‘Blue water’ colonialism
• Internal vs External – Canadian Supreme Court, re Quebec
• ‘colonialism’ or ‘alien subjugation, domination or exploitation’
International organisations
• Distinction between International intergovernmental organisations
(IGOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
• IGO – an international organisation established by treaty or other
instrument governed by international law and possessing its own
international legal personality.
• Examples: UN, EU, NATO
• NGO – international organisation founded by private individuals
independent of states, that pursue public rather than private goals as
an objective, and possess a minimal organisational structure. Its goals
and organisational structure transcends national boundaries.
Generally does not have international legal personality.
• Examples: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch
BUT see ICRC which is sui generis
Non-self governing Peoples, Indigenous peoples
• NSGP – Right to self determination (see previous slide)
• Also recognition of rights as a collective (as well as, as individuals) full
humans rights and fundamental freedoms, including non-discrimination.
Examples:
• GA Res 61/295 Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples (13 Sept 2007)
• ILO Conventions 107 & 169 on Indigenous & Tribal Peoples
Insurgents and National Liberation
Movements
• Insurgents/ Non-state organised armed Groups: See for example
Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions
• National Liberation Movements: Examples: Arts 1(4) and 96(3)
Additional Protocol I
Individuals
• Under International law, individuals have the rights and obligations
granted to them by states.
Examples:
• Rights: Human rights treaties:
• International Convention on civil and political rights (ICCPR), International
Convention on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights (ICESCR), European
Convention of Human Rights (ECHR)
• Obligations: International Criminal Law
• Genocide Convention (1948), Nuremburg tribunals
Territorial entities other than states
• UN Trustee system (chpt XII and XIII UN Charter)
• UN Transitional Administrations
• Examples: UNTAC (Cambodia), UNMIK (Kosovo), UNTAET (East Timor/Timor
Leste)
• Sui generis:
• Examples: The Holy See, Sovereign Order of Malta, ICRC
• Taiwan
Independent agencies created by IGOs
• Example: European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex)
Regulation (EU) 2019/1896 (Art 93)

Article 93
Legal status and location
1. The Agency shall be a body of the Union. It shall have legal personality.
2. In each of the Member States, the Agency shall enjoy the most extensive legal capacity
accorded to legal persons under their laws. It may, in particular, acquire or dispose of
movable and immovable property and may be party to legal proceedings.
3. The Agency shall be independent in implementing its technical and operational mandate.
…
Multinational enterprises
• Emerging field and developing law – soft law.
• Examples: Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes
between States and Nationals of Other States, Art 25
Nature
• Can Nature itself be a subject of international law?
• IACtHR – Advisory Opinion, The Environment and Human Rights (2017)
• autonomous right to a healthy environment ‘protects the components of the
environment such as forests, rivers and seas, as legal interests in themselves,
even in the absence of the certainty or evidence of a risk to individuals’
• Not only because of their effects on other human
rights but their importance to other living organisms
… that also merit protection in their own right.
• States recognition of legal personality of components
of nature e.g. rivers
Examples: Colombia – Rio Atrato & Amazon River
ecosystem; New Zealand - Whanganui