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ASPECTS REGARDING THE LEGAL REGIME OF THE INDIVIDUALS IN INTERNATIONAL LEGAL REPORTS. CAN INDIVIDUALS BE SUBJECTS OF PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW?

R. S. Patru

Abstract

The subjects of public international law are the states, as primordial subjects of international law and international intergovernmental organizations. The legal status of the individual - the natural person - within the international public law represents an important topic of discussion, both in the specialized doctrine and within the specific institutions that apply the international law. Two points of view have emerged in time: in the first opinion, legal entities are real subjects of public international law, starting from the premise that the states are in fact some fictions, which exist through the perspective of the people who compose them, being presented as arguments on the one hand, the decisions of some war courts such as the one in Nuremberg which ruled against individuals, and on the other hand the refugee situation or the active procedural quality of natural persons before international courts, and a second opinion holds that not individuals are subjects of international law, but states, because individuals are legitimized in international activities through the states of which they are citizens. In view of the above, in the present study we aim to offer a solution to this important challenge, and to answer the following question: individuals (natural persons) can have either a limited legal status in international relations or these prerogatives remain owned by states?.

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