Introduction

Summary

Legal personality is a concept present in international law. It is principally employed to distinguish between those social entities relevant to the international legal system and those excluded from it. There is almost universal agreement that states are international persons. But it is unresolved whether and according to what criteria entities other than states – individuals, international and non-governmental organizations, private corporations – can become international persons and what consequences such international legal status entails. In this sense, it still holds true that, as the International Court of Justice put it in Reparation for Injuries, international personality is a concept ‘giv[ing] rise to controversy’.

Despite (or perhaps because of) its controversial nature, there is little comprehensive literature on legal personality in international law, at least in recent times. Certainly, most textbooks contain chapters on international personality or on the subjects of international law, the two expressions mostly used as synonyms. And equally true, there is a large number of scholarly contributions focusing on one particular aspect of international personality, for example on the international legal status of individuals or on the international capacities of international and non-governmental organizations. But there are very few general treatments of the topic and, to the extent they exist, they tend to be brief and observational in nature or more concerned with historical and biographical rather than with legal analysis.