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Law Notes Public International Law Notes

Subjects Notes

Updated Subjects Notes

Public International Law Notes

Public International Law

Approximately 460 pages

Public International Law notes fully updated for recent exams at Oxford and Cambridge. These notes cover all the major LLB aspects and so are perfect for anyone doing an LLB in the UK or a great supplement for those doing LLBs abroad, whether that be in Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong or Malaysia (University of London). See if you like them by referring to the samples below. We've also included our previous years' authors free of charge, to give you some extra materials to refer to for the tricky topi...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Public International Law Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

A. INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PERSONALITY AND INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PERSONS

1. INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PERSONALITY

Legal personality refers to the quality of possessing rights and obligations under a legal system.

International personality is not an absolute concept: it operates as if on a sliding scale with various subjects of international law having various capacities for particular purposes.

There is a distinction between objective and qualified personality.

  • In the former case, the entity has a wide range of international rights and duties and it will be entitled to be accepted as an international person by any other international person with which it is conducting relations – objective legal personality operates erga omnes. The creation of objective international personality will require the action of a substantial element of the international community (Reparations for Injuries)

  • Qualified personality binds only the consenting subject – any legal person may accept that another entity possesses personality in relation to itself and that determination will operate only in personam

A ‘state’ will have objective legal personality. All states, by virtue of the principle of sovereign equality, will enjoy the same degree of international legal personality. Other subjects, such as international organisations and individuals, will have qualified personality - personality in such measure and for such purposes as is necessary for the achievement of their roles within the international legal system.

(i) States

(ii) International organizations

(iii) Individuals

2. INDIVIDUALS

Individuals have a very limited capacity to participate in the international relations.

States used to regard individuals as objects without international legal rights and duties, who constituted only the subject-matter of intended legal regulation. Only states, and possibly international organisations, are subjects of the law.

However, the human being is the ultimate concern of international law and this was clearly manifest in the Natural Law origins of classical international law. Modern practice demonstrates that individuals are increasingly recognised as participants and subjects of international law. A wide range of treaties have provided for individuals to have rights directly and have enabled individuals to have direct access to international courts and tribunals.

(i) International Criminal Law

Individuals as subjects of international criminal law:

E.g. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998):

Article 25. Individual criminal responsibility

1. The Court shall have jurisdiction over natural persons pursuant to this Statute.

(…)

4. No provision in this Statute relating to individual criminal responsibility shall affect the responsibility of States under international law

.

Article 51. Crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court

The jurisdiction of the Court shall be limited to the mjost serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole. The Court has jurisdiction in accordance with this Statute with respect to the following crimes:

(a) The crime of genocide;

(b) Crimes against humanity;

(c) War crimes;

(d) The crime of aggression.

(ii) International Human Rights Law

Individuals as subjects of international human rights law:

Universal system for the protection of human rights: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966)

Regional systems for the protection of human rights: European Convention on Human Rights (1950), American Convention on Human Rights (1969) and African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981)

  • Right to access international courts occasionally envisaged for individuals:

Art. 34, European Convention on Human Rights

The Court may receive applications from any person, non-governmental organization or group of individuals claiming to be the victim of a violation by one of the Contracting Parties of the rights set forth in the Convention or the Protocols thereto

(iii) International investment law

International investment law provides investors with the possibility to pursue investment protection claims directly in international arbitration. Diverse institutional arrangements exist for such claims arising from the violation of bilateral investment treaties. However, only nationals of States Parties benefit from bilateral investment treaties.

3. INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Article 2(a) of the ILC’s 2011 Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations provides: ‘international organization’ means an organization established by treaty or other instrument governed by international law and possessing its own international legal personality.

International organizations may possess international legal personality and incur international responsibility. The extent of personality in international law depends on its constitutional status, its actual powers and practice. In Nuclear Weapons, the ICJ held that ‘international organizations are subjects of international law which do not, unlike States, possess a general competence. International organizations are governed by the ‘principle of speciality’ - they are invested with powers by the States. The limits of those powers are a function of the common interests whose promotion those States entrust to them.

In Reparation for Injuries, the Court was asked to advise on the capacity of the UN to bring an international claim for injury to its personnel on the lines of diplomatic protection, and in respect of injury to the UN caused by the harm to its agents. But UN Charter not explicitly allowed to make such a claim. The Charter did not contain any explicit provision on the international legal personality of the UN, but the Court drew on the implications of the instrument as a whole, noting that, if the UN was to fulfill its tasks, ‘the attribution of...

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