1- Components of the International Community:

If the existence of individuals implies elements of a society that grows to include new elements like companies and parties, forming a (national) society whose component relationships branch out and whose governing rules evolve towards what we now call the domestic law of a state, the matter did not stop there. The emergence of states formed a set of components for a new society: the international community.

Every society seeks growth and development, which is inevitably linked to the multiplicity of its elements and the increase of its needs. Just as domestic society was not limited to individuals, the international community was not limited to states alone. However, international legal jurisprudence has not agreed on these elements, but is divided among three schools of thought.

1/1 - The Traditional School:

Traditional international legal jurisprudence depicted the international community as a society of states, and nothing but states. Just as individuals need to cooperate with each other, states, due to their growing desires and the requirements of their development, also need mutual cooperation by establishing bilateral or collective relations that require regulation by binding legal rules. Thus, the definition of international law is determined by its regulation of relations between states.

While this understanding of international law was acceptable in the past, when the international community was realistically composed only of states, it no longer aligns, at least since the early twentieth century, with the developments that have occurred in the international community and the new elements that have entered it, such as administrative and technical unions, and regional and global organizations. This began to indicate the nature of new international relations.

1/2 - The Objective School:

A portion of French (constitutional, civil, and international) jurisprudence denies the existence of legal personality. For them, only the human being has personality in the eyes of the law. A legal entity is not a real person, as it lacks perception and will, which are components of a real person's existence but not of groups of persons or assets. However, some recognize personality for the legal entity through a legal fiction or assumption (Théorie de la fiction), making the existence of the legal entity not (real) but (assumed) and created by law. Others argue that the legal entity has a real existence derived not only from the law's recognition of its legal personality but also from a practical standpoint, as the legal entity has an organic composition; it consists of cells which are its constituent individuals, who are absorbed into its entity just as body parts are absorbed into the entity of a natural person, "and are not distinguished from it unless the brain or hand can be distinguished from the human." Therefore, the actions of employees are attributed to the legal entity just as the action of the hand is attributed to the human. This applies to groups of individuals or states where relationships arise between individuals within a state or between groups across borders.

Despite this, the existence of legal personality cannot be denied. The analogy between an organ in the human body (like the hand or tongue) and a member of a legal entity (like an employee in a ministry or a manager in a company) is incorrect, as an organ in the human body does not act on its own—except in pathological cases—unlike a member of a legal entity.

1/3 - The Modern School:

Modern international legal jurisprudence tends towards a broader indication of the components of the international community, and thus the rules governing the relations between these components, and not being confined to an understanding of a single element (the state or the individual) or even a list of some elements, and then applying the rules of law within the limits of that narrow understanding.

While acknowledging that the international community includes a number of states, and that the individual is the nucleus of both national and international society, development has left, and will always leave, opportunities for the emergence of new forms (organizations, national liberation movements, special international situations) about which international jurisprudence may agree or disagree on whether all or some of them enjoy—theoretically—equal rights with the previous elements that formed the international community.

The state, if it is the (sole) person as seen by the traditional school, or the (main) person as seen by others, must be addressed by the rules of international law. In addition to the emergence of other persons who may be subject to the provisions of this law, whether permanently and fully, like international organizations and the Vatican, or in specific cases, like the international trusteeship system or national liberation movements.

2- The Naming of International Law:

Old jurisprudence often used the term "Law of Peoples (Jus Gentium)" instead of (International Law). Some writers (Professor Georges Scelle) still use this term or its equivalents, such as "Law among Nations" by Professor (Mohamed Talaat El-Ghoneimy) and Professor (Gerhard von Glahn), and "Transnational Law" or "Inter-State Law" by Professor (Charles Rousseau). However, despite the validity of using these terms, they are not sufficient to describe the intended situation. The word "Law" implies the binding nature of its rules, and the use of the term "International" with it indicates this law's concern with regulating relations between the elements of the international community beyond the national borders of all states, distinguishing it from the domestic law of any state. The addition of the adjective "Public" is to confirm its affiliation with the branches of public law and to distinguish it from private international law. Therefore, international jurisprudence and practice have settled on using the name (Public International Law).

• ISBN: 9789957164317
• Weight: 0.800 kg
• Dimensions: 17×24 cm
• Paper: White
• Pages: 336
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Binding: Hardcover