1 Legal Status (Personality), 1.3 Maclaine Watson & Co. Ltd v International Tin Council , 26 October 1989, United Kingdom House of Lords, 81 ILR 670

Author(s):  
Palchetti Paolo

This judgment constitutes one of the most authoritative precedents on the question concerning responsibility of members for acts of the organization. The House of Lords denied the existence of a rule of general international law according to which, in the absence of an express provision in the constitutive treaty excluding the responsibility of the members, they are responsible, jointly and severally, for the breach by the organization of its obligations to third parties. According to the House of Lords, the separate legal personality of an international organization precludes that the members can be held responsible, due to their membership, for the conduct of the organization. The judgment also addresses the question of whether the effects stemming from the possession of a separate legal personality have to be determined by reference to international law or by reference to the domestic law of the forum state.

Author(s):  
Schmalenbach Kirsten

This article examines the question of what is the legal basis for granting foreign international organizations legal personality under the law of a state which is neither a party to the founding instrument nor the host state. In the considered case the House of Lords was faced with the task of deciding on the legal personality status of the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) after the organization instituted fraud proceedings against a former Director General in the United Kingdom. As the founding treaty of the AMF had not been incorporated into UK law, the organization was not recognized under domestic law. The House of Lords took recourse to the federal decree of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which had granted the AMF domestic legal personality.


Author(s):  
Higgins Dame Rosalyn, DBE, QC ◽  
Webb Philippa ◽  
Akande Dapo ◽  
Sivakumaran Sandesh ◽  
Sloan James

The United Nations (UN) was created by its founding member states when they adopted the UN Charter. Therefore, the legal authority for its existence, status, and possession of legal personality is derived from the role of states as lawmakers in the international system. This chapter discusses the meaning of legal personality and basis for its possession by the UN; status as an international organization; basis for legal personality; consequences of legal personality; position in international law; position in domestic law; what is covered by the legal personality; and the independent competence of subsidiary organs to rely on the UN’s legal personality in international law and such personality granted in municipal law.


2004 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-34
Author(s):  
Vladimir Kanachevskii

AbstractThe author examines the legal status of international organizations and foreign states in trade and commerce in the Russian Federation. The specifi c issues which are touched upon by the author include general problems of the participation of public entities—such as international organizations as legal persons and the immunity of foreign states and international organizations—in civil law relations. The author concludes that domestic legislation should not be considered to be the only source of law for regulating private international relations involving states; practice illustrates that international treaties are also a source of such rules and regulations. Special attention in this article is devoted to characteristic features of the legal personality of international organizations, the sources of law regulating relations in which international organizations participate, the role of domestic law and internal rules of international organization itself, the various aspects of the legal capacity of international organizations as subjects of Russian civil law including agreements involving international organizations, the legal status of their separate divisions, issues relating to the property rights of international organization, and the civil law status of representatives of foreign states attached to international organizations (and their civil servants). The legal base for this research is formed by international treaties, the charters and internal rules of international organizations, and rules of Russian civil legislation as well as decisions of Russian and international judicial bodies. By way of conclusion, the author postulates that it is wise for domestic (and foreign) natural and legal persons, which enter into relations with the international organizations and foreign states, to take into consideration the specifi c nature of the above-mentioned subjects. In practice, this may result in dismissal of a plaintiff 's claim in a RF court where the defendant is an international organization or foreign state. It may thereby be impossible to hold such an organization or state civilly liable (without its consent) for breaching a contractual undertaking.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 135-139
Author(s):  
Kirsty Gover

International law has long recognized that the power of a state to identify its nationals is a central attribute of sovereignty and firmly within the purview of domestic law. Yet these boundaries may be shifting, in part due to the effect of international human rights norms. In 2011, citizenship scholar Peter Spiro asked, “[w]ill international law colonize th[is] last bastion of sovereign discretion?” Ten years later, this essay reframes the question, asking whether the international law of Indigenous Peoples’ rights will “decolonize” the discretion, by encouraging its exercise in ways that respect and enable Indigenous connections to their traditional land. It considers this possibility in light of two recent cases decided by courts in Australia and Canada, both of which ascribe a distinctive legal status to non-citizen Indigenous persons: Love v. Commonwealth, Thoms v Commonwealth (“Love-Thoms,” Australian High Court) and R. v. Desautel (“Desautel,” British Columbia Court of Appeal, currently on appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada). In each case, the court in question recognized that some Indigenous non-citizens have constitutional rights to remain within the state's territory (and perhaps also a correlative right to enter it), by virtue of their pre-contact ancestral ties to land within the state's borders.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 381
Author(s):  
MSc. Ornela Taci

The article titled “International legal subjectivity: Concept and reality in the UN” the first, identifies debates on subjects of International Law briefly. The identification of debates serves to deal the creation of UNO (United Nations). Then, the article treates a brief historical overview on the functions of the UN since its creation until today to analyze international legal personality and its legal nature opposite functions that are dampened and transnational capabilities, the UN priority today. Also, it gives the reasons why the debate on UN reform should remain open.The aim of this study is to examine from the perspective of a qualitative methodology the characteristics of the legal status of the UN in space and in time to create a model based on Charter and on the real exercise of its functions but not according to denomination. The theories on international legal personality, the distribution of the United Nations and the consequences are not treated for this reason in this study. Also, historical and legal methods are used.The legal status of UNO is a tool to fulfil mission in approach of action of International Law, the challenge of the debate today. UNO was established in 1945 and acts are based on its Charter and international documents. The UN mission has changed today but the International Order is not in danger because the target of the UN is its renewal through reforms. The open debate on reform gives a contribution on evolution of International Law.


Author(s):  
Boris Krivokapić

The paper deals with international legal status of multinational (transnational) companies. The first part gives an overview of this entities and the specifics of their role in the modern world.In the second part, the author deals with the elements of international legal personality of multinational (transnational) companies. Such as international legal regulation of the position of these entities, their specific rights and obligations under international law, international responsibility, process subjectivity before certain international judicial bodies and the special relationship (partnership) with international organizations. It should be added that not only that international law acknowledges their existence, but also multinational companies themselves at least in part influence the development of that law.In the concluding remarks the author notes that multinational (transnational) companies do not have all the elements of a full international personality, the one that is inherent to states. However, even if not complete their personality is beyond doubt. Although between them, depending on the case, there are major differences, there is no dispute that, from the perspective of international law, at least some multinational companies have the legal capacity (the ability to be the holder of a larger or smaller circle of rights and obligations established by international law), legal capacity (the ability to conclude international agreements, create international custom, etc.), tort capacity (the ability to provide for the legal bears responsibility for violating the norms of international law), process capability (active and passive legitimacy before some international courts), etc. In all likelihood, along with the expected further strengthening of the economic, but also political and every other power and role of the companies themselves, their international personality will also become more and more developed, At one point this will require global (universal) agreement which would precisely define rights, but, in particular, the duties and responsibilities of these entities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1164
Author(s):  
Gibson Radityo ◽  
Ida Kurnia

United Nation High Commissioner of Refugee (UNHCR)  is an internasional organization made under United Nations (UN) specifically for asylum seeker and refugee issues. As an international organization, UNHCR have a legal personality which is give them power to do such a legal action, yet from that power make UNHCR also gets its rights and respondsibility. According to UNHCR statute, Vienna Convention 1951 and Protocol 1967, one of UNHCR respondsibility is to protect and keep the refugee safe and make sure the third parties nation do all the responsibility to keep and protect the refugee. But how, if there is an issue that a nation break the international convention for refugee by force the refugee back to their home, yet the refugees already proved to do crimes againts the third parties nation policy? yet if the refugees forced  back to their origin couuntry, they will be threathened, so how suppose the UNHCR as an international organization for refugee do according to the UNHCR statute and Convention of refugees?in that case it will give a responsibility for UNHCR to solve the issue for the refugee. As the case above, the author have an insterest to summarizes the issue as my thesis.


2019 ◽  
pp. 131-160
Author(s):  
Gleider Hernández

This chapter looks at international organizations, their differences to States, and their position within the international legal order. Today, international organizations exist in virtually all fields of transnational and global collective concern. In the broadest sense, they facilitate international cooperation in all areas from the harmonization of tariffs to the management of delicate ecosystems, and range in their scope from small bilateral commissions regulating transboundary resources to regional security and economic organizations, all the way to the universalist aspirations of the UN. The chapter then considers the question of establishing the legal personality of international organizations under international law, which must be distinguished from the question of whether an international organization may also hold legal personality under the domestic law of a State.


2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-665
Author(s):  
Daniel D. Bradlow ◽  
Stephen Kim Park

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of the Federal Reserve as a leading actor in global economic governance. As a creature of U.S. domestic law with an international presence and operational independence, the Fed wields authority without a well-defined international legal status, international legal standards to guide its conduct, or accountability to those around the world affected by its decisions. This Essay explores three conceptual approaches that could be used to develop norms, standards, and principles to address this gap.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-233
Author(s):  
Kristina Daugirdas

Abstract This article argues that international organizations ‘as such’ can contribute directly to the creation of customary international law for three independent reasons. First, the states establishing an international organization may subjectively intend for that organization to be able to contribute to the creation of at least some kinds of customary international law. Second, that capacity may be an implied power of the organization. Third, that capacity may be a byproduct of other features or authorities of the international organization – specifically, the combination of international legal personality and the capacity to operate on the international plane. Affirming international organizations’ direct role in making customary international law will not dramatically change the content of customary international law or the processes by which rules of customary international law are ascertained. But recognizing that role is significant because it will reinforce other conclusions about how international organizations fit into the international legal system, including that customary international law binds international organizations. Such recognition may also shift the way lawyers within international organizations carry out their work by affecting the sources they consult when answering legal questions, the materials they make publicly available and the kinds of expertise that are understood to be necessary to discharge their responsibilities. Finally, affirming international organizations’ role in creating customary international law may make international organizations more willing to comply with those rules.


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