scholarly journals International Legal Subjectivity: Concept and Reality in the UN

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.


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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (42) ◽  
pp. 35-61
Author(s):  
Nataliya Yakymchuk ◽  
Ganna Vlasova ◽  
Oksana Vaitsekhovska ◽  
Petro Tsymbal ◽  
Yuliia Baliuk

The article is devoted to the issue of international legal personality of cities as subnational persons. The rapid urbanization of cities, modern processes of decentralization of power in the countries and the growth of economic globalization in the world have led to an increase in the autonomy of subnational individuals (especially such their kind as cities). The sphere of greatest manifestation of such independence is economic, within which, cities are increasingly entering into foreign economic relations not only with foreign legal entities, but also with international intergovernmental organizations and governments of foreign countries when solving economic and economic issues of local level. The rapid growth and such foreign economic activity, the legal basis of which, as a rule, are international treaties between the countries, has caused ambiguous understanding of the legal status of subnational persons and highly actualized the research of this problem in the context of determining their international legal personality. The article analyzes the doctrinal approaches to the concept of "subject of international law" and the criteria for their separation from other legal entities participating in relations with a foreign element. The basic international documents and normative legal acts of foreign countries that regulate the legal status of territorial communities of cities as subjects of local self-government and give the rights to enter into a contractual relationship on their own and in a responsible manner in a transboundary context are investigated. Exploring the forms of urban cooperation at the regional and universal levels, the following forms of networking of cities as infrastructures, which are factors of international legal regulation (aimed at economic solidarity) and political ones, in which cities often act as agents of international intergovernmental organizations, are distinguished. Based on the analysis of international documents and national legal acts regulating the legal status of subnational persons and their relations with subjects of international law, as well as domestic and foreign doctrines of international legal personality, a scientific approach to the status of cities in economic relations with a foreign element is formulated. Cities are defined as complementary (substantive) subjects of international legal relations with a special international legal personality: in the formally-legal plane they are granted the rights in foreign economic activity by the legal norms of the national law, which these relations are regulated; similarly to the states, cities (like other subnationals) are representatives of the public interest of the communities of cities; in the economic-practical plane act as independent subjects of economic relations of an international character. Illustrated signs of the rapid development of "city diplomacy", which, on the background of decentralization of authorities to territorial communities and economic globalization, led to the expansion of the scope of international legal personality in the practice of foreign economic relations and caused a gradual change in their international legal personality in international acts.


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

This chapter examines the powers or competences of the United Nations as a separate legal entity. Its possession of legal personality, its specialized agencies, and some of the separate legal entities in the UN family are concepts that are related but distinct from the powers of these bodies. The possession of international legal personality means that these bodies have their own rights and duties, and powers vested in them in their own right. However, the possession of legal personality does not define the particular powers of the organization, nor does it mean that they have plenary competence under international law or in municipal legal systems. The chapter discusses the relationship to legal personality; nature and scope; purposes and principles of the organization; division of competence between principal organs and subsidiary organs; domestic jurisdiction limitation of Article 2(7); substantive content of powers internationally and in domestic law; consequences of ultra vires acts.


Author(s):  
Klabbers Jan

International law provides little support for a hard and fast distinction between formal and informal international organizations (IOs). To the extent that the terms are useful, it is to signify a relative value: some organizations exhibit a higher degree of institutionalization than others or, differently put, the mixture of formal and informal elements in any organizational design may locate the organization on different points on a continuum between formal and informal. This chapter explores to what extent the formal-informal distinction affects foundational decisions: the decision to set up an organization, to grant or withhold international legal personality, and to endow it with specific powers. It suggests that the distinction between formal and informal meets with little resonance in the law of IOs or, more accurately, that while founding actors can opt for higher or lower degrees of formalization or institutionalization, their intentions have little direct bearing on the legal nature of the organization per se.


1980 ◽  
Vol 49 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 14-30
Author(s):  
Reinhold Reuterswärd

AbstractAmong contemporary writers on international law it is a widely held view that international organizations are new kind of subjects of international law besides the States, i.e., have an international legal personality distinct from that of their member States. Many writers, indeed, treat this as something almost self-evident and beyond dispute. Actually, however, the international legal personality of international organizations remains a theoretical thesis rather than a scientific fact. Although this thesis seems to be supported by most writers, there are considerable differences of opinion among theorists as regards both the basis of that international personality and its meaning. Furthermore, some important aspects of the matter have been given little attention by most writers. It would seem, therefore, that the problem is far from solved. Some writers differ from the majority and deny that international organizations have international legal personality. They have, I submit, convincingly shown that there are strong reasons to question the validity of the generally accepted doctrine.1 The purpose of the present paper is to set forth some of the facts which support the view of this minority and which deserve more attention than has so far been given to them.


Author(s):  
Weller Marc

This chapter studies Articles 3, 4, 5, 18, 23, and 46(1) of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The debate about the right to self-determination for indigenous peoples, and its provisional conclusion through the adoption of the Declaration, represents a very significant step in the development of concepts of international legal personality. First, the change in terminology from ‘populations’ to ‘people’ marks the emergence of indigenous peoples as subjects, rather than objects of international law. Second, there was the possibility of drawing on existing international legal language in relation to a safeguard clause, which was eventually adopted in line with the General Assembly's vulnerable Friendly Relations resolution. Without the adoption of this clause, it is unlikely that the Declaration could have been adopted with a significant majority, if at all.


1985 ◽  
Vol 20 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 341-361
Author(s):  
Chava Shachor-Landau

The second half of the twentieth century is witnessing a tremendous development of the concept of international organizations as “subjects” of international law. These “subjects” are endowed with international legal personality and with powers—express or implied—to achieve their declared objectives.The corner-stone to this new edifice was erected as long ago as 1949 by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion on Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations. The Court examined the purposes and principles set out in the Charter of the U.N. and concluded that the Organization is an international person.… [I]t is a subject of international law and capable of possessing international rights and duties, and… it has capacity to maintain its rights by bringing international claims.… . Under international law, the Organization must be deemed to have those powers which, though not expressly provided in the Charter, are conferred upon it by necessary implication as being essential to the performance of its duties.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 403-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Tichy ◽  
Catherine Quidenus

On 14 June 2017, a Headquarters Agreement between Austria and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (‘osce’) was signed. This is remarkable in that the osce, unlike other international organisations, lacks a generally acknowledged international legal status. This View from Practice charts the history of the multilateral efforts to grant a clear legal status to the osce, the recognition by Austria that it considers the osce as having obtained international legal personality on the basis of customary international law by offering to conclude a Headquarters Agreement, and the contents of this Agreement.


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