Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Detailed table of contents
- Table of cases
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Part I The structure of international law
- 1 The setting of international law
- 2 The making of international law
- 3 The law of treaties
- 4 The subjects of international law
- 5 Jurisdiction, powers and immunities
- 6 The individual in international law
- 7 The law of responsibility
- 8 International courts and tribunals
- 9 Sanctions, countermeasures and collective security
- Part II The substance of international law
- Part III The surroundings of international law
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core
4 - The subjects of international law
from Part I - The structure of international law
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Detailed table of contents
- Table of cases
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Part I The structure of international law
- 1 The setting of international law
- 2 The making of international law
- 3 The law of treaties
- 4 The subjects of international law
- 5 Jurisdiction, powers and immunities
- 6 The individual in international law
- 7 The law of responsibility
- 8 International courts and tribunals
- 9 Sanctions, countermeasures and collective security
- Part II The substance of international law
- Part III The surroundings of international law
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The laws of China, as commonly understood, apply to all persons and legal entities in China; it is often said that these form the subjects of Chinese law. By the same token, the question arises of to whom, or to which entities, international law applies. What, in other words, are the subjects of international law? This is a topic of great controversy, partly because of the relevance of subjects doctrine. Rights and obligations must apply to someone; hence, it is through subjects doctrine that these rights and obligations under international law are allocated.
The main subjects of international law are states, and for centuries states were held to be the only subjects of international law, save perhaps for a few oddities (the Holy See, the Maltese Order) which would be considered subjects for historic reasons and, it seems, because states generally treated them as subjects. This focus on states still applies, and makes for difficult discussions on the legal standing of other entities. It is now generally recognized that entities such as intergovernmental organizations (the UN, the EU, the IMF or the WTO) are to be regarded as subjects of international law – and this was ultimately confirmed by the ICJ in the 1949 Reparation opinion, holding that the UN had to be considered as such. Yet, this was not always the case; early observers were at pains to come to terms with the status of the League of Nations, with some treating the League as an oddity similar to the Holy See.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- International Law , pp. 67 - 90Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
References
, ‘(I Can't Get No) Recognition: Subjects Doctrine and the Emergence of Non-state Actors’, in Jarna Petman and Jan Klabbers (eds.), Nordic Cosmopolitanism: Essays in International Law for Martti Koskenniemi (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2003), 351–69
, ‘Le caractère essentiel de la Société des Nations’ (1919) 23
Revue Générale de Droit International Public, 234–44Google Scholar
, ‘The Status of the League of Nations in International Law’, in John Fischer Williams, Chapters on Current International Law and the Law of Nations (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1929), 477–500
, International Law in Historical Perspective, Vol. II: International Persons (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1969), at 303–5
(ed.), Non-state Actors and International Law (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009)
and , The Making of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2007)
, Non-governmental Organisations in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
, Sovereignty (London: Watts & Co., 1966)
and (eds.), State Sovereignty as Social Construct (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
, The Sovereign State and its Competitors (Princeton University Press, 1994)
, The Creation of States in International Law, 2nd edn (Oxford University Press, 2006)
, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999)
, A Philosophy of International Law (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998)
, ‘The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance’ (1992) 86
American Journal of International Law, 46–91Google Scholar
, ‘Statehood, Self-determination, and Recognition’, in Malcolm Evans (ed.), International Law, 3rd edn (Oxford University Press, 2010), 203–51, at 220
, Recognition of Governments in International Law, with Particular Reference to Governments in Exile (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)
, Nonrecognition and Treaty Relations (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1968)
, Recognition and the United Nations (Cambridge: Grotius, 1987)
, ‘The European Community Arbitration Commission on Yugoslavia’ (1996) 66
British Yearbook of International Law, 333–413Google Scholar
and , ‘Africa: Lost between Self-determination and Uti Possidetis’, in Catherine Brölmann et al. (eds.), Peoples and Minorities in International Law (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1993), 37–76
The EU guidelines are reproduced in (1992) 31 International Legal Materials, 1486
, The Acquisition of Territory in International Law (Manchester University Press, 1963)
, Possession contesté et souveraineté territoriale (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997)
, The Miangas Arbitration (Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon, 1933)
, ‘The Doctrine of Intertemporal Law’ (1980) 74
American Journal of International Law, 285–307Google Scholar
, The Island at the Center of the World (New York: Random House, 2005)
, International Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 2007), at 66
, ‘No More Shifting Lines? The Report of the Iraq–Kuwait Boundary Demarcation Commission’ (1994) 43
International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 904–13Google Scholar
, International Territorial Administration: How Trusteeship and the Civilizing Mission Never Went Away (Oxford University Press, 2008)
, ‘The Antarctic Treaty as a Treaty Providing for an “Objective Regime”’ (1986) 19
Cornell International Law Journal, 189–209Google Scholar
, ‘Legal Implications Resulting from State Failure in Light of the Case of Somalia’ (2004) 73
Nordic Journal of International Law, 1–36Google Scholar
, The Decolonization of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2007)
, Illegal Annexation and State Continuity: The Case of the Incorporation of the Baltic States by the USSR (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2003)
, ‘State Succession in Respect of Human Rights Treaties’ (1996) 7
European Journal of International Law, 469–84Google Scholar
, The Concept of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961)
, State Succession and Membership in International Organizations: Legal Theories versus Political Pragmatism (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 2001)
et al. (eds.), State Practice Regarding State Succession and Recognition (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1999).
, An Introduction to International Institutional Law, 2nd edn (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
and , International Institutional Law: Unity within Diversity, 4th edn (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2003)
, Routledge History of International Organizations: From 1815 to the Present Day (London: Routledge, 2009)
, Public International Unions, Their Work and Organization: A Study in International Administrative Law (Boston, MA: McGinn & Co., 1911)
and , Institutionalisiertes Völkerrecht (Munich: Beck, 2009)
and , ‘Autonomous Institutional Arrangements in Multilateral Environmental Agreements: A Little-noticed Phenomenon in International Law’ (2000) 94
American Journal of International Law, 623–59Google Scholar
, Admission to the United Nations: Charter Article 4 and the Rise of Universal Organization (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2009)
, International Bureaucracy (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1975)
, International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
and , Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics (Princeton University Press, 2004)
, ‘The Scope of the Supremacy Clause of the United Nations Charter’ (2008) 57
International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 583–612Google Scholar
, The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2009)
, ‘Reflections on the Politics of Institutional Reform’, in Peter G. Danchin and Horst Fischer (eds.), United Nations Reform and the New Collective Security (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 76–93
, Intellectual Property Rights, the WTO and Developing Countries: The TRIPS Agreement and Policy Options (London: Zed Books, 2000), at 171–3
, Dark Continent: Europe's 20th Century (London: Penguin, 1998)
and , Regime-kollisionen. Zur Fragmentierung des Globalen Rechts (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006)
, A New World Order (Princeton University Press, 2004).