The role of State in the International Sphere

 

The state as an international player, characteristics and limitations.

A subject of public international law is any entity capable of acquiring rights and contracting obligations within the international legal order. That is to say, they will be a centre of imputation of international norms, contracting obligations and rights within the legal system.

It is legally asserted that the subject lies in the capacity of that entity to create, modify or extinguish legal relations. When they participate in the creation of norms, we can affirm their subjectivity. 

We must be clear that international law is based on the recognition that it has multiple subjects. The original subjects are the states, on which the whole community agrees, and from them other international subjectivities are affirmed. 

The multiplicity of subjects raises the question that the subjects of public international law are not necessarily all identical because states do have identity from the point of view of the attribute, i.e. sovereignty. 

The state has a territory, a population, a government, and has sovereignty (attribute), which is what distinguishes these original subjects of public international law from all the rest. The only sovereigns are states. 

Sovereignty

Sovereignty can be interpreted internally and externally. Some authors state that there is internal and external sovereignty. 

- Internal sovereignty: this consists of everything that the government of a state can do over the territorial and non-territorial areas under its jurisdiction. 

Sovereignty does not always coincide with a land delimitation, but there are spaces that are composed of gaseous matter, i.e. airspace, and over maritime zones, the so-called internal waters, territorial sea and contiguous zone with limitations.

- External sovereignty: has a positive phase, that which gives the state identity on the international plane and which will make all states equal. 

A state can claim to be sovereign when its acts are conclusive, not only in the exercise of that sovereignty inwardly but also outwardly. In the positive phase it is not just placing a flag over a territory that makes a state sovereign, that is the way we visualise sovereignty. The concrete acts that go hand in hand with that are, for example, including it in a census. 

In the negative phase, it is given by the capacity of the person exercising this right to prevent others from attempting to take concrete actions with respect to this territory. It is all that it can do and all that it can prevent another from doing. It is the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of the state, known as the principle of non-interference. 

Territory

This brings us to the notion of frontier. The exercise of sovereignty is limited to a territorial space, which marks the limit to which the state can exercise its sovereignty. The notion of border as a boundary and delimitation of territories has not always existed. 

When the first states emerged in the 15th century. Each state that began to emerge began to try to assert its sovereignty and its territorial limit. So work was done on the delimitation of territory, states could not simply agree on boundaries. 

There are natural and conventional boundaries. They have to be agreed upon in a specific way by seeking a solution to a point of conflict for that delimitation. These conflicts occur even with natural boundaries, since, for example, if the boundary is the Cordillera, we have to see to what extent it belongs to each state, which leads to conventional boundaries. 

Mechanisms to delimit territory

- Setting limits by force: the international community advanced and this mechanism gave way to other forms that basically proscribe the use of force and are therefore based on international treaties for the delimitation of land or maritime territorial space. 

- Peaceful means of conflict resolution: Article 33 of the United Nations Charter states: 

The parties to a dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.

The Security Council shall, if it deems it necessary, encourage the parties to settle their disputes by such means.

It gives us a series of tools to solve the conflict, through mediation, arbitration, conciliation, the possibility of submitting the case to the International Court of Justice. 

The state government

Once we set the boundaries, it is how we exercise power over the population, and thus the government of the state emerges. Government is the authority exercised by the constituent element of the state at the international level.