INDRODUCTION
Law is the set of rules generally regarded and accepted as binding in relations between states and between nations. It serves as a framework for the practice of stable and organized international relations. International law differs from state-based legal systems in that it is primarily applicable to countries rather than to private citizens. Primarily international law is concerned with relationship between states, but however with recent developments and events that occurs in last and present century. It is inevitable that international law have gone beyond governing relationship between states. What is why international law recognised other entities and organisations as subjects of international law, which include multinational corporations, independent international organisation, individuals and others non-states actors that really affect international law. Throughout the 19th century, only States qualified as subjects of international law. After, the Second World War, more and more new actors emerged in the international legal arena such as the intergovernmental organizations created by States, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) created by individuals, multinationals and even natural persons (i.e. individuals). These can now be considered as having to a large or sometimes limited extend the capacity to become international persons.
THE FOLLOWING ARE EXAMPLE HOW MODERN INTERNATIONAL LAW GOES BEYOND STAES
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly influential players on the international scene. Since the end of the Cold War, NGOs have enjoyed increasingly easy access to, and better possibilities to affect, political processes taking place above the national level. In fact, the increasing intensity of their activities over the last decade demonstrates that they have become an integral part of the procedures and structures of global governance. Most visibly, the recent protests of anti-globalization activists in Seattle, Gothenburg, Porto Alegre, Davos, Genoa, and many other locations demonstrated the potential of NGOs to influence the proceedings of international negotiations. These protests also clearly revealed NGOs' capacity for mobilizing and networking across borders and in a short period of time.2 But NGOs are not always opponents to governmental institutions and do not always challenge their policies. Rather, they are often directly involved in the design of policies and may shape political processes from inside the official arenas. For example, at the United Nations, NGOs are significantly involved in the activities and performances of the intergovernmental organizations (IGOs).They advise U.N. commissions and committees regularly, they work together with U.N. agencies and implement projects for them, or they assist U.N. institutions and provide necessary information. In his Millennium report, Secretary-General Kofi Annan re-emphasized that strengthening the relations between the United Nations and private actors constitutes a priority of his mandate. He seeks "[too give full opportunities to non-governmental organizations and other non-state actors to make their indispensable contribution to the [United Nations] Organization's work." Despite the increasing involvement of NGOs in the processes and proceedings of global politics and international law, the features and functions of the "new player" NGO have not yet been clearly identified.Definitions and interpretations of the term NGO vary enormously and can often be misleading or even contradictory. For some, "NGO" simply describes many different types of organizations which are not governmental, including multi-national companies, national liberation groups, and many more. For others, "NGO" is reserved exclusively for private non-profit organizations encouraging higher values within the legal scope of their society. In international law, the term "NGO" is equally confusing in its application. In this paper, I will argue that there is a lack of agreement on NGOs as subjects of international personality. While in many countries domestic legislation for "private associations" serves as a basis for NGO identification and recognition, at the international level, international legal standards to define and regulate the perception of NGOs have not yet been established.
This "non-status" of NGOs in international law may be considered an opportunity for maintaining a variety of voices of civil society in the international sphere. Since the criteria for actor NGOs are not rigorously regulated, various kinds of societal actors may be given the opportunity to contribute to the political process when they would otherwise be excluded. This non-status, however, also creates various problems. Most importantly, in the light of the increasing participation of NGOs in international political processes, the lack of regulation.
International organizations
Apart from state, international organisation is a subject of IL since they are the organization of states which are assigned with specific function. International Organizations are established by States through international agreements and their powers are limited to those conferred on them in their constituent document. International organizations have a limited degree of international personality, especially visà-vis member States. They can enter into international agreements and their representatives have certain privileges and immunities. The constituent document may also provide that member States are legally bound to comply with decisions on particular matters. International personality of the United Nations is affirmed in Article 104 of UN Charter – the organization shall enjoy in the territory of each of its member such legal capacity as may be necessary for the exercise of its function and the fulfilment of its purposes. The most important evidence for the determination of the international personality of the UN is the advisory opinion in the Reparation’s case September 1948. The powers of the United Nations are set out in the United Nations Charter of 1945. The main political organ is the General Assembly and its authority on most matters (such as human rights and economic and social issues) is limited to discussing issues and making recommendations. The Security Council has the authority to
make decisions that are binding on all member States when it is performing its primary responsibility of maintaining international peace and security. The main UN judicial organ is
International Court of Justice, which has the power to make binding decisions on questions of international law that have been referred to it by States or give advisory opinions to the U.N.
Individuals:
Before the twentieth century, the view was that individual was merely an object and not subject of IL. However, since the World War I, the community of nations has become increasingly aware of the need to safeguard individual’s right under the IL. Thus, many scholars provided the thesis that individual should also be regarded as subject of IL. An analysis of the evolution of international law until present shows a progressive trend to widen the list of its subjects. Originally, in the ideas of the so called “founding fathers” of the international law, Francisco de Vitoria, Francisco Suarez, Hugo Grotius, the existence of a
universal community of individuals was sustained and the individual was identified as a reference point of rights and duties. Individuals have criminal law obligations under the laws of armed conflict. Individuals are now seen as having not only criminal law obligations but also rights under international law. If we do not want the development of international law to stagnate we should perhaps admit the progressive idea that individuals have, in addition to these rights and criminal law obligations, certain international civil law obligations. There are
norms which establish direct responsibility of an individual.
Multinational Corporation
Is a centrally coordinated company that is established in more than one nation-state. A typical multinational corporation comprises a parent company in one state with subsidiaries in one or more other states. There is no uniform terminology, however. The United Nations continues to use the term “transnational corporation,” although many academic authors have dropped that term because of its association with the now discredited New International Economic Order. The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) employ the term “multinational enterprise.” The main difficulty with multinational corporations is the accountability or governance gap caused by the absence of corporate regulation in international law. In traditional international law, multinational corporations have rights but no obligations. In practice, therefore, multinational corporations are subject only to the domestic laws of the different states in which they operate. Since states compete with each other to attract investment from multinational corporations, the regulatory framework applicable to such corporations has a tendency to weaken rather than strengthen.
CYBER SPACE
Cyber operations challenge not only the physical and spatial assumptions that guided the formation of much of the public international law inherited from previous generations, they test fundamental premises respecting the identity and status of actors governed by that body of law. Classically, individuals and non-state actors proved relevant to international law only as the agents, proxies or chattel of states. Significant gaps in resources and capacity between states on the one hand and non-state actors on the other prevented their interactions from demanding significant attention from international law. And in those rare historical instances in which non-state actors could mount serious challenges to state hegemony, like cases of civil war, international law responded with significantly curtailed normative frameworks, such as that found applicable to armed conflicts not of an international character.
Cyber operations, however, appear to present greatly increased opportunities for non-state actors to match, and in some cases even to surpass, state supremacy. Non-state actors capable of mounting cyber operations that profoundly affect states’ security, and circumstances in which non-state actors demand as much or more attention than other states, are no longer futuristic or far-fetched—they are the prevailing reality of cyberspace. In addition to constituting a new domain of warfare between states, cyberspace also appears to represent a significantly contested domain between states and non-state actors. As an example, a recent report reveals the USA has resorted to offensive cyber operation in its efforts against Islamic State forces operating in Syria and Iraq.
Still, at present, public international law primarily governs the relationship between states. This is no less true when considering its application to cyber activities involving non-state actors, such as individuals, private companies, hacker groups, criminal groups or terrorists. Nevertheless, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the international law of cyber operations has no bearing on these activities. This article briefly surveys the intersection of public international law with cyber activities conducted by or against non-state actors. Drawing on the work of the International Group of Experts that prepared ‘The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare’ it addresses three topics of particular relevance in this regard that lie outside the normative framework of armed conflict: sovereignty, state responsibility and the jus ad bellum. The first two are presently being examined in much greater depth as part of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence’s Tallinn Manual 2.0 Project’s consideration of the peacetime law of cyber operations.These important international norms and their emerging cyber-minded applications constitute critical legal considerations for states engaged in contentious cyber operations with non-state actors.
INDIGENOUS
Although indigenous peoples have been granted specific rights under the ILO Convention (No 107) concerning the Protection and Integration of Indigenous and other Tribal and Semi-Tribal Populations in Independent Countries and Convention (No 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, it has been made clear inboth conventions that the use of the term people does not imply a respective general qualification under international law. Therefore, until recently, current international practice did not seem to include indigenous peoples in the right to self-determination ( State Practice). However, the United Nations Human Rights Council (United Nations Commission on Human Rights/United Nations Human Rights Council) adopted in 2006, as one of its first actions, the draft for a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which contains in its Art. 3 the express recognition that indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. If this approach is continued, indigenous peoples may qualify as subjects of international law in the future.
VIOLENT NON STATE ACOTRS (NSA)
Non-State Actors (NSA) are entities that participate or act in international relations. These are organisations with sufficient power to influence and cause a change even though they do not belong to any established institution of a state. The admission of non-state actors into the international relations theory rebukes the assumptions of realism and other black box theories of international relations, which argue that interactions between states are the main relationships of interest in studying international events.A Violent Non-State Actor (VNSA) is an organisation that uses illegal violence (i.e. force not officially approved of by the state) to reach its goals. Phil Williams, in an overview article, states that “VNSAs have become a persistent challenge to nation-states in the 21st century”. In various parts of the world, VNSAs not only intimidate businesses, corrupt politicians and launder their proceeds, but also engage in a range of activities that defy and weaken state sovereignty. In most of the African countries as well as Central Asia and Afghanistan, warlords are major players in the political system and the economy. In Iraq, insurgents, terrorists, militias and criminal organisations operate in a common opportunity space, intersecting and overlapping in ways that make the restoration of a legitimate and effective central state particularly difficult. VNSAs play a prominent, often destabilising role in nearly every humanitarian and political crisis faced by the international community. As a new class of actors in international relations, VNSAs represent a departure from the traditional Westphalian system of states in two ways: by providing an alternative to state governance and challenging the state’s monopoly of violence. VNSAs develop out of poor state governance but also contribute to further undermining governance by the state. When weak states are unable to create or maintain the loyalty and allegiance of their populations, individuals and groups typically revert to, or develop, alternative patterns of affiliation. This causes the family, tribe, clan, etc. to become “the main reference points for political action, often in opposition to the state”.
Conclusion
In conclusion, from what this paper have already established above you can see that international does not only focus on states actors but its reach non states actors, it is worthy of noting that states actors will forever be the back bones of international law, international start with governing relationship between states actors but will not end up only governing states affairs. Other non-states actors such as individuals, Multinational Corporation, non-governmental organisation and others are all within the reach and scope of international because they play major roles on the international arena.
By
Abdulkadir Muhammad
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