Who makes international law and its recipients?

Who are the legal subject of international law?

States followed by intergovernmental organisations

States are social aggregates capable of independently exercising their three fold internal sovereignty:

1. Jurisdiction to prescribe

2. To adjudicate

3. To enforce

What condition applies to the exercise of a states external sovereignty?

Independence

How do international legal constraints on states impact on the principle of independence as a corollary to state sovereignty?

It does not contradict the principle of independence as a corollary to state sovereignty. That is so insofar as such constraints are freely undertaken by states, precisely through the free exercise of their internal and external sovereignty.

What are the three legal requirements for acquiring internation legal personality / effective independent statehood?

1. an independent and stable Government

2. a territory with settled borders within which the Government in question exercises its jurisdiction

3. a permanent population settled in that territory and ruled by the Government in question.

What is the constitutive recognition doctrine?

Considers recognition as a state by preexisting states as a further requirement for the acquisition of international legal personality

What did the case “the Arbitration Tribunal in Deutsche Continental Gas-Gesellschaft v Polish State” say about recognition?

The recognition of a State is not constitutive but merely declaratory.

Why did the ICJ come to the conclusion that the UN was an international person?

The Organisation must be deemed to have these 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

Before the introduction of international human rights law in the mid-1900s, why did states have absolute freedom in relation to the treatment of their nationals within their borders?

It was considered a corollary to the principle of sovereign equality and independence of state

How has the formation of human rights law “pierced the veil” of domestic jurisdiction?

Significantly reducing the shield of national sovereignty against international scrutiny.

What does James Crawford say about what international law tries to do?

'many of the things international law tries to do have to be done at the national level'.

Do NGOs have legal personality?

Being registered under the municipal law of a state, NGOs have legal personality under that domestic law, but not under international law

What is the issue of transparency with NGOs?

Namely, whilst governmental activities are subject to the political constitutional checks and balances, as well as to domestic social and judicial control, the monitoring of NGOs' international activities is difficult and their funding is not always transparent.

How are corporations considered actors in international law?

Corporations are generally the indirect subjects of international law but enforcement happens through nation law and domestic courts - not international courts