INTRODUCTION. We all live within the framework of national legal orders

We all live within the framework of national legal orders. We therefore tend to assume that each legal system should be modelled on State law, or at least strongly resemble it.

However, the picture offered by the international community is completely different. This enquiry should therefore begin with a note of warning. The features of the world community are unique. Failure to grasp this crucial fact would inevitably entail a serious misinterpretation of the impact of law on this community.

THE NATURE OF INTERNATIONAL
LEGAL SUBJECTS

The first salient feature of international law is that most of its rules aim at regulating the behaviour of States, not that of individuals. States are the principal actors on the international scene. They are legal entities, aggregates of human beings dominated by an apparatus that wields authority over them. Their general goals are quite distinct from the goals of each individual or group. Each State owns and controls a separate territory; and each is held together by political, economic, cultural (and frequently also ethnic or religious) links.

Within States individuals are the principal legal subjects, and such legal entities as public corporations, private associations, etc. are merely secondary subjects whose possible suppression would not result in the demise of the whole legal system. (However, the possible collapse of the governmental authorities may only be transitory; otherwise the whole State, as a distinct international entity, breaks down.) In the international community the reverse holds true: States are the primary subjects, and individuals play a limited role. The latter are as puny Davids confronted by overpowering Goliaths holding all the instruments of power.

Today it could be maintained with greater truthfulness that without the protection of a State human beings are likely to endure more suffering and hardship than what is likely to be their lot in the normal course of events - witness the plight of stateless persons, which has only lately been taken up by international institutions.