Traditional and new subjects

National systems encompass very many legal subjects: citizens, foreigners residing in the territory of the State, corporate bodies, and State institutions (if endowed with legal personality). In contrast, only a limited number of legal persons, that is, holders of international rights, powers, and obligations, make up the international community. The fundamental or primary subjects are States. They are paramount because they are the international entities which, besides controlling territory in a stable and permanent way, exercise the principal lawmaking and executive 'functions' proper of any legal order. All other subjects either exercise effective authority over territory for a limited period of time only, or have no territorial basis whatsoever. States, therefore, are the backbone of the community. They possess full legal capacity, that is, the ability to be vested with rights, powers, and obligations. Were they to disappear, the present international community would either fall apart or change radically. For historical reasons, there are at present about two hundred States, including a few mini-States. In principle, all States are equal. However, one particular class - a handful of States with strong economic and military systems - holds authority in the international community.

There is another category of international subjects, namely insurgents, who come into being through their struggle against the State to which they formerly belonged. They are born from a wound in the body of a particular State, and are therefore not easily accepted by the international community unless they can prove that they exercise some of the sovereign rights typical of States. They assert themselves by force, and acquire international status proportionate to their power and authority. However, their existence is by definition provisional: they either win and turn into fully fledged States or are defeated and disappear.

In the twentieth century, and increasingly after the Second World War, other poles of interest and activity have gained international status. They are: international organizations, individuals, and national liberation movements (i.e. some categories of peoples possessed of a representative organization). The emergence of these relatively 'new' subjects is a distinct feature of modern international law.

Unlike States, all the other international subjects just mentioned, on account of their inherent characteristics (e.g. lack of territorial authority, etc.) possess a limited legal capacity. In particular, they have a limited capacity to be vested with international rights and powers or to be under international obligations, or a limited capacity to act, that is, to put into effect their rights and powers in judicial and other proceedings, or to enforce their rights.