Koncepcja „non-state actors” a umiędzynarodowienie regionów

Abstract

In recent years, a significant change in the approach of international law scholars to the issue of legal personality can be noticed. In particular, it is manifested in the openness to the development of the legal persons’ catalogue, as a result of the progress in practice through the second half of the 20th century to the beginning of this century. After the long supremacy of States, as subjects of international law, they have accepted, directly or indirectly, the legal personality of other categories of international relations actors. The International Court Of Justice Advisory Opinion of 11 April 1949 concerning Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations, appeared to be a breakthrough case, in which the Court somehow “unlocked” the concept of legal personality in international law for subjects other than States. Especially governmental international organizations benefited from it. Furthermore, the development of international human rights law and international criminal responsibility of individuals have contributed to the empowerment of individuals in international law. The process is not yet finished. Other applicants either obtain acceptance of international legal personality (such as legal persons: multinational corporations, NGOs, and others), or keep operating as actors aspiring to international legal personality (as it is noticed and analyzed in academic researches). Such subjects as Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were internationally noted mainly due to separatisms and secessionist aspirations (and due to the almost universal lack of international recognition of independence proclaimed by them, they have been called “de facto regimes”). From the perspective of a Member State of the European Union, but also from the perspective of a Polish voivodship, the emancipatory aspirations submitted by the Spanish regions: the Basque Country and Catalonia, postulated by Padania in Northern Italy, in Belgium by the Walloon Region, the Flemish Region and the Brussels-Capital Region, and by British regions: Scotland and Northern Ireland, are interesting in scientific terms. The concept of “Non-State Actors” seems to justify the scientific study of the status of regions (for example, Polish voivodships) in international law and the prospects for its development in this area.