It is a very important topic of International Law and gives the information regarding Subject of International law & legal personality with case laws.

1. Subject of Law & Legal Personality
 PRESENTED BY-
 VANDANA
DHOUNDIYAL

2. 1) The concept of International personality
 International person is one who possesses legal
personality in international law.
 One who is subject of international law enjoy rights,
duties / powers established in international law have
the capacity to act on the international plane

3. Characteristic of international
personality
 The enjoyment of rights conferred and the subjection
to obligation imposed by international
law.
 Capacity to enter into treaties and agreements valid on
the international plane
 Capacity to make claims in respect of breaches of
international law
 The enjoyment of privileges and immunities from
national jurisdiction

4. Subjects of International Law
 State
 International Organisation
 Individual and Corporations

5. 1) States as subject of IL
Oppenheim stated four condition for the existence of states
 People : there must be people who live together as a
community even though they may belong to different
races, religion or colours.
 Territory : in which the people is settled. Wandering people
is not a state
 Government : one or more persons act for the people and
govern according to the law of the land
 Sovereignty : supreme authority which is not dependant on
other authority/independent

6. Criteria of statehood under IL
Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on Rights and
Duties of States. The state as a person of IL should
possess the following qualification:-
 Permanent population
 Defined territory
 Government
 Capacity to enter into relations with other states

7. Defined territory
 The control of territory is the essence of a state
 Territorial sovereignty allows a state to exercise sovereignty
within that territory without any interference from foreign
government without its consent
 This concept is defined by geographical area separated by
borderlines from the other state’s territory. So, the delimitation
of state boundaries is of crucial importance.
 Absolute certainty is not required
Permanent population
 Wandering tribe do not qualify to be a state
 There must be a people linked to a specific territory on a more or
less permanent basis and who can be regarded as its inhabitant
Western Sahara’s case
It was noted that the territory of the Western Sahara is populated
by a nomadic tribe who go freely across the desert. However, it
was held that their link with the territory is such that they may
be regarded as its population.

8. Government
 The government must be effective within the defined territory
and exercise control over the permanent population.
Aaaland Island case
The main question was the date on which Finland become a
state. Finland had been a part of the Russian Empire until the
Russian Revolution. The parliament declared Finland’s
independence on December 4, 1917. This was recognized by the
Soviet Government but there was opposition within Finland
which rejected the idea of independence. As a result, violence
broke out and for a time, the government of the new state was
able to maintain order only with the help of the Soviet troops.
The International Committee of Jurist held that the exact date
Finland become a state was when the public authorities had
become strong enough to assert themselves through the
territories of the state without the assistance of foreign troops
and that was in May 1918.

9.  Exception :
The effective requirement does not apply to an
established state. A state does not cease to exist when
it is temporarily deprived of an effective government
(due to civil war/upheavals) Somalia and Japan.

10.  Capacity to enter into relations with other states
Montevideo Convention refers ‘capacity to enter into
relation’ as independence in law. Judgee Anzilotti in
Austro-German Custom Union case delivered his
opinion in respect of the meaning of independence :
independence may also be described as sovereignty or
external sovereignty by which is meant that the state
has over it no other authority than that of IL

11. 2) International Organisation Apart from state, international organisation is a subject of IL
since they are the organization of states which are assigned with
specific function, they must enjoy some measure of international
personality to carry out the function.
International personality of the United Nations
 Legal capacity of UN is affirmed in Article 104 of UN Charter –
the organization shall enjoy in the territory of each of its
member such legal capacity as may be necessary for the exercise
of its function and the fulfilment of its purposes.
Article 105 – guaranteed privileges and immunities of the UN,
its officials and representative
Article 1 (1) of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities
of the UN – The UN shall posses juridical personality and that it
shall have the capacity to contract, to acquire and dispose of
movable
and immovable property and to initiate legal proceeding.

12.  The most important evidence for the determination of the
international personality of the UN is the advisory opinion in the
Reparation’s case
 September 1948 – Court Bernadotte, a Swedish national, was
assassinated in Jerusalem which was in Israeli possession. He
was the Chief UN Truce Negotiator in the area. In the course of
deciding what action to take in respect of his death, the UN GA
requested ICJ to give an advisory opinion on whether UN had the
capacity to bring an international claim against the responsible
government to obtain reparation.
 The Court in its opinion : has come to a conclusion that the
organization is an international personality. That is not to say
that it is a state and posses the same legal personality, rights and
duties to that of the states. But it is a subject of international law
and capable of possessing international rights and duties and
has capacity to maintain its right by bringing international
claims.

13. Criteria for determination of international personality
In the Reparation’s case, the court outlined two criteria
 The intention of a states to establish an organization having a
distinct legal personality detached from that of its members
Can be inferred from various factors. May also be expressly
mentioned in the constituent instrument of the organisation
Eg : Article 4 (1) of the Rome Statute Establishing the
International Criminal Court as having an international legal
capacity
 The actual exercising and enjoying of functions and rights which
can only be explained on the basis of the possession of a large
measure of international personality

14. Rights conferred to international
organisation
 The treaty making power
 Privileges and immunities
 Right to bring international claim
 The right to protection for its agent acting in their
official capacity

15. 3) Individuals and Corporations
 Before the twentieth century, the view was that
individual was merely an object and not subject of IL.
However, since the World War 1, the community of
nations has become increasingly aware of the need to
safeguard individual’s right under the IL. Thus, many
scholars provided the thesis that individual should
also be regarded as subject of IL

16. Legal responsibility of individuals
under IL
 There are norms which establish direct responsibility of an individual.
Individual who commit certain crime under IL should be punished as
according to IL.
Eg : piracy, slace trading, genocide, war crime and crime against
humanity
 International law directly impose a legal duty upon individual not to
commit such crimes.
 -After WW2, international military tribunals were set up at Nuremberg
and Tokyo. The judgment of the Nuremberg and Tokyo International
Military Tribunal affirmed the criminal responsibility of individual
under IL. The often quoted passage : crime against international law
are committed by men, not by abstract entities and only by punishing
individuals who commit such crime can the
provision of IL be enforced.

17. Rights of individuals under IL
 Individual has some degree of international personality but to a very
limited extent, much more limited than the legal personality of an
international organisation.
 Number of rules of IL exist for the benefit of individuals but that does
not necessarily means that the rules create ‘right’.
 One way of proving that the rights of individual exist under IL is to
show that the treaty conferring the rights gives the individual access to
an international court or tribunal to enforce their right.
 General rule : the individual have no locus standi or access to
international court and tribunal, most international tribunals are not
open for individuals.
 Exceptions (individual may be given right to appear before an
international tribunal ) :
European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom –
any private individuals who are nationals of state parties can bring an
action before the European Court of Human Right against their own
government for violations of human right.

18. Access to the ICJ
 Article 34 (1) of the Statute of ICJ provides that – only states shall be the parties
in cases before the court. Individuals or corporations has no locus standi before
the court
 If they are victim of international wrongful act of a foreign government, they
have to persuade their national state to take up the case and initiate proceeding
against the responsible state before the world court.
Factors to be taken to initiate such international claim
 There must have been an internationally wrongful act committed by a foreign
state against a national or a corporation of the claimant state
 Two requirements for the admissibility of an international claim
i) Nationality of claims – there must be a linkage of nationality between the
victim and the state making the claim
ii) Exhaustion of local remedies – the victim must have been exhausted all the
effective local remedies available at the wrongdoer state
 Jurisdictional requirement : Article 36 of the Statute of ICJ – the court can
exercise jurisdiction only with the consent of both state parties to the dispute

19. Case : Nottebohm Corporations
 Corporation or companies usually are treated as the
same as individuals. Normally, their relationship with
states is governed by the domestic law. However, it is
possible that a contractual relationship between a
corporation and a states be governed by international
law.
Eg : Texaco v Libya case
 Concession agreement for the extraction of oil might
be an internationalised contract subject to rules of
international law. But such contract are at the
discretion of the host state and they do not confer
international legal personality on the foreign
companies.

20. THANK YOU