Another Brick in the Wall

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 414-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasna Arsić-Đapo

The origins of the osce began as a political conference established by the 1975 Helsinki Accords, rather than a treaty-based international organization. Through political decisions it has evolved in a fragmented way, structurally and legally, which has resulted in a decades-long debate over its international legal personality and its status as an ‘fully-fledged’ international organization. In that light, the June 2017 Arrangement between the osce and the Republic of Poland on the Status of the osce in the Republic of Poland, as well as the 2017 Agreement between the Republic of Austria and the osce regarding the Headquarters of the osce , which were concluded as treaties, demonstrate recognition, by those two states, of the osce as a subject of international law with treaty-making capacity. This suggests that the osce may be acquiring international legal personality much in the same way as states achieve statehood—element by element and recognition state by state.

Author(s):  
Sam Klug

Abstract This article charts how African American appeals to international law shifted away from a politics of petition to a politics of sovereignty with the growing influence of postcolonial states in international society and the UN’s recognition of a right to self-determination. Whereas earlier efforts by African-descended peoples in the Americas to gain a hearing before international bodies often required pushing the boundaries of international legal personality to include entities other than states, in the late 1960s and early 1970s a black nationalist group called the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) pursued international subjectivity in its traditional and fullest form: as a sovereign state. Examining the writings of RNA leaders, especially Imari Obadele, this article explores how the group’s claims for territory, reparations, and international subjectivity relied on international legal discourse about plebiscites, self-determination, and national development.


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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3(16)) ◽  
pp. 381-408
Author(s):  
Enis Omerović

The first chapter of the paper elaborates the question of whether one of the constitutive elements of the internationally wrongful act and a precondition for responsibility could be embodied in an existence of damage that has to be inflicted upon participants with international legal personality. In this regards legal doctrine, the arbitral awards, international judgments as well as the works of the UN International Law Commission will be examined, particularly the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts and the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organisations from 2001 and 2011, respectively. An interesting question could be raised concerning the terms used in Law on Responsibility and that is whether there is a difference between damage, injury, and unlawful consequence. Punitive or penal damage and its application in Law on Responsibility will be further assessed. The author will begin its research with the definition of punitive damage, and will further take into consideration international legal doctrine, international arbitral awards, judicial decisions of international courts, decisions of various claims commissions as well as norms of general international law in supporting his hypothesis that international law does not entail reparations for punitive damages. One of the aims of this paper is to indicate the question of whether the existence of punitive damages in international law, if any, be linked to a legal nature of State and international organization responsibility, in the sense that application of punitive damages in international law would support the thesis on the very existence of criminal responsibility of the named subjects of international law? It is interesting to note that the criminal responsibility of states has been abandoned by the removal of Article 19 in the final Draft Articles on Responsibility of States.


Author(s):  
Noemi Gal-Or

SummaryThis article challenges the argument that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is devoid of executive or governing functions and, hence, immune from the regime set out in the International Law Commission’s 2011 Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (RIO). A brief drafting history of the RIO, clarification of the terminology associated with matters of international responsibility, and two hypothetical examples illustrating the potential for WTO responsibility set the stage for the article’s main argument. The author examines the WTO’s nature by analyzing its constituent law, its sui generis mandate and functions, its international legal personality, and its own use of terminology in presenting itself to the world. Critical analysis of RIO Articles 64 (on lex specialis) and 10 (on the existence of a breach of an international obligation), and their application to the WTO, completes the argument. The author thus refutes both the notions that (1) the WTO is exclusively member driven and, hence, not an executive, governing organization but a sui generis entity and (2) the WTO is therefore unable to breach an international obligation and thus immune from the RIO regime. The article concludes that, while a breach by the WTO of an international obligation may be exceedingly rare, it nonetheless — as any international organization — comes within the ambit of the RIO regime. The WTO should therefore consider adjusting its internal rules accordingly.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean d'Aspremont

AbstractIt is classically contended that when an international organization endowed with international legal personality commits an international wrongful act, the organization is to be held exclusively responsible even though the act would have constituted a violation of its member states' obligations if committed by them. This Article intends to depart from such a rigid interpretation of the responsibility of international organization and makes the argument that when member states abuse the international legal personality of an international organization through the exercise of an excessive control over the decision-making process of the organization, they must be held, together with the organization, responsible for violations of international law by the organization provided that such a wrongful act would also constitute a breach of the member states' international obligations if committed by them. It is posited here that, in this situation, member states can no longer hide behind the screen of the international legal personality of the organization. Failing to take the extent of control exercised by member states over the decision-making process of an international organization into account boils down to ignoring that autonomy is one of the constitutive elements of the legal personality of an international organization, which can bolster the contemporary move away from international institutionalism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Solomon E. Salako

There is uncertainty about the status of the individual in international law. The traditional positivist doctrine of international law is that States are the sole subjects of international law and that the individual is the object. The contemporary approach is that the individual is an original subject of international law and the owner of international individual rights. This approach relies for its justification on areas of international law such as investment protection treaties, intellectual property treaties, international human rights law, individual criminal liability in international law and Vienna Convention on Consular Relations where the individual has been brought into contact with international law. The objects of this article are: (i) to assess critically the various areas where the individual has been brought into contact with international law with a view to showing that the individual is not a full subject of international law; and (ii) to show that insofar as the individual possesses a limited locus standi in international law and a limited array of rights, that is, limited legal capacity, the proffered existence of an international legal personality of the individual is not only superfluous but also confuses international legal personality which involves the capacity to perform legal acts in the international sphere with legal personality in municipal law.


2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 997-1016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cedric Ryngaert

It is generally considered that an international organization (‘IO’) has an international legal personality which is distinct from that of its Member States, as a result of which the IO itself, rather than the Member States, is to be held responsible for the IO's internationally wrongful acts.1 It appears to be an accepted principle that Member States cannot generally be held liable for the acts of IOs by virtue of their membership of an IO alone. This view can be found in a 1996 resolution of the Institut de Droit International, which provides that ‘there is no general rule of international law whereby States members are, due solely to their membership, liable, concurrently or subsidiarily, for the obligations of an international organization of which they are members.’2 This is echoed in the International Law Commission's (‘ILC’) Commentary to article 62 of the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (‘ILC DARIO’): ‘It is clear that … membership does not as such entail for member States international responsibility when the organization commits an internationally wrongful act’.3 The ILC holds the view that only in the case of an intervening act by a Member State that influences the commission of a wrongful act by the IO (aid and assistance, direction and control, coercion, avoidance of compliance, acceptance) could the Member State be held responsible.4


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (11) ◽  
pp. 0-0 ◽  
Author(s):  
Анна Каширкина ◽  
Anna Kashirkina

Eurasian integration and the functioning of the Eurasian Economic Union are important parameters for the development of the modern practices of international organizations and associations. The study of the features of the ways of the Eurasian integration is necessary to determine further ways of improvement of the Eurasian Economic Union and efficiency upgrading of it. The article focuses on the scientific problems of possible growth and expansion of the Eurasian Economic Union. The author shows different possible ways of such movement and growth. Extensive way of growth should be seen in the enlargement of the member-states of the Eurasian Economic Union. In this case it should be noted that during two years of functioning of the Eurasian Economic Union, established by of three States — Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, have joined the Republic of Armenia and the Kyrgyz Republic. Another way is increasing and intensification, i.e. intensification of international relations of the Eurasian Economic Union with different subjects of international law, primarily States and international organisations as SCO, ASEAN, European Union. It must be accented the entry of the Eurasian economic Union into the international stage of foreign trade relations with Vietnam and Serbia. In the forecast is conclusion of treaties with China, Israel, Mongolia and South Korea. In such relationships the Eurasian Economic Union will be able to implement its international legal personality, which is stipulated by the Agreement on the Eurasian Economic Union.


Author(s):  
Carla Ferstman

The chapter considers in what circumstances international organizations have international legal personality and what results from such personality. It also considers whether international legal personality gives rise to rights and obligations and which ones. Central to this analysis, the chapter studies whether an international organization may have human rights and international humanitarian law obligations and whether these derive from its international legal personality, its constituent agreement, as a result of the functions of the organization, or some combination thereof. The chapter concludes that international organizations have obligations to comply with peremptory norms and accepted general principles of international law (which include elements of human rights and international law) that apply to all subjects under international law. There are also additional obligations which apply in particular contexts, and are aligned with organizations’ purposes and their capacities to act and react in any given situation.


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