The Politics of International Personality and Their Historical Inconsistency

Abstract

The author approaches the doctrine of legal personality from the point of critique of the international legal positivism in its retrospective analysis. Being crucial for understanding the law and its values, legal personality is at the same time the most discredited legal notion. This is due to the preponderant position occupied by the legal positivism — a paradigm which has established the supremacy of State, reduced personality to sovereignty, and ousted the human from the international legal realm. Fighting metaphysics of ius naturale the legal positivism created its own mythology of sacrosanct essence — the State endowed with its own will and interests to create international law and implement it of its own choice. Thus established statist order was proclaimed natural and reasonable. Despite that the realm of recognized international legal persons has always been arbitrarily determined by those who detained power having acted in accordance with their will, interests and context to strengthen their predominant position and to oppress others. While the necessary obstacles to acquire the personality cannot be discerned. On the contrary, the international jurisprudence and history of academia demonstrate voluntaristic character of designs as to the personality is taken against the background of the general context and personal values of decision-makers. The evolutive expansion of the bearers of international personality is not linear and extensive but is geared by the generally perceived need for inclusivity when law is expected to address living beings and ordinary life. The naturalisation and biological determinism as discursive tools to substantiate abstract and voluntaristic notions of positivism engender suppression and violence. There are no predetermined international legal nature limits as to international legal personality and its beneficiaries.