scholarly journals International legal personality in public and private law: problems of theory and practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (47) ◽  
pp. 180-189
Author(s):  
Ganna Sarybaieva ◽  
Liydmyla Panova ◽  
Ernest Gramatskyy ◽  
Alen Panov ◽  
Alborz Pahlevanzade

At the present stage of the development of international relations, an important aspect is the specification of the rights and obligations of the subjects of international law, which are elements of international legal personality, which is subject to multifaceted study. The research of its problematic elements is fundamental to improving the rules of international law in general and domestic law in particular. The work aims to study and identify problems of theory and practice of international legal personality in public law. The object of research is international legal personality in public law. The subject of the research is problematic aspects of the theory and practice of international legal personality in public law. The following methods were used in the study: observation, historical method, method of analysis, comparison, generalization, the system method, method of analysis of normative documents. As a result of the research, the institute of international legal personality, in general, was analyzed, its peculiarities and problematic aspects were determined.

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Goode

It is a remarkable circumstance that with a few honourable exceptions all writers on international law in general and treaty law in particular focus exclusively on public law treaties. Private law conventions, including those involving commercial law and the conflict of laws, simply do not come into consideration. Yet such conventions, like public law conventions, are treaties between States and are governed by the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and many of them are of great significance. Their distinguishing feature is, of course, that while only States are parties, private law conventions deal primarily, and often exclusively, with the rights and obligations of non-State parties. So while the treaty is international it does not for the most part commit a Contracting State to any obligation other than that of implementing the treaty in domestic law by whatever method that State's law provides, if it has not already done so prior to ratification.


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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
Mark Tushnet

Boundaries: between public and private law – Political dimensions of private and public law – Boundaries between domestic law and transnational and international law – Boundaries between law and other disciplines, including economics, comparative politics, normative political theory, and hermeneutic disciplines – National styles of comparative law scholarship – Analytic and pragmatic traditions in comparative law scholarship


Author(s):  
Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen

Chapter 1 first sets the stage by describing, in Section 1.1, the current mainstream approach to the international legal personality of individuals. Section 1.2 then provides a concise outline of the book’s core arguments. Section 1.3 goes on to clarify a number of preliminary caveats, definitions, and assumptions, which form the basis of the analysis in the following chapters. First and foremost, Section 1.3 presents the book’s understanding of the term ‘individuals’, the relationship between international law and domestic law, and the distinction between primary and secondary rules. Lastly, Section 1.4 provides the reader with a guide to the subsequent chapters.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 1163-1182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ukri Soirila

Drawing from Roberto Esposito's recent work on persons and things, this Article studies recent attempts to rethink international legal personality. Esposito's work resurrects the claim that personhood operates like a mask, splitting the legal and philosophical world into persons and things. International law differs from domestic law in that international legal personality has traditionally been the prerogative of states, not of (rational) individuals. Yet, this has not completely dismantled the persons/things logic, because the exclusive legal personality of states has continuously threatened to reduce individuals into things in the eyes of international law. It is perhaps for this reason that international legal theorists have long sought to extend international legal personality to individuals and other non-state actors. This Article addresses the most recent attempt, namely an attempt to shift international law towards a law of humanity. Without taking a stance on whether this project is a good idea or not, this Article raises some doubts about whether the concept of international legal personality can help in fulfilling the project's aim, namely to help increase human freedom and wellbeing. This is especially relevant because, regardless of whether legal personality is attributed primarily to the state or the individual, we still remain—according to Esposito—within a theoretical framework in which the dispositif of person necessarily excludes some forms of life in protecting or empowering others.


Author(s):  
Katharine Fortin

This chapter presents and explains the evaluative framework that the study employs when analysing armed groups and legal personality. In doing so, the chapter provides a short historical account of the manner in which international legal personality has been understood and theorized and explains how the evaluative framework will be utilized in the subsequent chapters.


Author(s):  
Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen

Chapter 9 reiterates and reflects on the overall conclusions of the previous chapters: (1) that positive international law has consistently supported Kelsen’s ‘a posteriori’ conception of international legal personality; (2) that, consequently, the international legal personality of any entity is solely a matter of (presumption-free) interpretation of international norms; and (3) that we must abandon both the widespread presumption against direct individual rights and obligations (in accordance with the ‘modified States-only’ conception of international legal personality) and the use of the orthodox ‘States-only’ conception of international legal personality as means to distinguish between international law and national law.


Author(s):  
Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen

This book scrutinizes the relationship between the concept of international legal personality as a theoretical construct and the position of the individual as a matter of positive international law. By testing four main theoretical conceptions of international legal personality against historical and existing international legal norms that govern individuals, the book argues that the common narrative about the development of the role of the individual in international law is flawed. Contrary to conventional wisdom, international law did not apply to States alone until the Second World War, only to transform during the second half of the twentieth century to include individuals as its subjects. Rather, the answer to the question of individual rights and obligations under international law is—and always was—solely contingent upon the interpretation of international legal norms. It follows, of course, that the entities governed by a particular norm tell us nothing about the legal system to which that norm belongs. Instead, the distinction between international and national legal norms turns exclusively on the nature of their respective sources. Against the background of these insights, the book shows how present-day international lawyers continue to allow an idea, which was never more than a scholarly invention of the nineteenth century, to influence the interpretation and application of contemporary international law. This state of affairs has significant real-world ramifications as international legal rights and obligations of individuals (and other non-State entities) are frequently applied more restrictively than interpretation without presumptions regarding ‘personality’ would merit.


2015 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 905-933
Author(s):  
Jarrod Hepburn

AbstractThe UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts have appeared in a small but steady trickle of investment treaty arbitrations over the last decade. This article considers the use of the Principles by investment tribunals on questions of both domestic law and international law. It suggests that reference to the Principles can play an important legitimating role on questions of domestic law, but that this should not replace reference to the applicable law. On questions of international law, reference to the Principles may be justified by resort to the general principles of law. However, the article contends that there is only a limited role for the UNIDROIT Principles where the primary and secondary rules of investment protection are already found in treaties and custom. In addition, while general principles have historically been drawn from domestic private law, there is increasing recognition that general principles of public law are more relevant to investment arbitration. Given this, arbitrators resolving questions of international law must be cautious in references to the UNIDROIT Principles, a quintessentially private law instrument.


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