On Tuesday last week, a group of seven politicians and academics headed by former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Shih Ming-te (施明德) announced their “broad one China framework,” along with five principles for handling problems that arise in relations across the Taiwan Strait.
It is not clear what exactly they meant when they used the term an “incomplete international entity,” but the examples that Shih gave were completely inaccurate, and his error calls for clarification.
The international community is always changing. One result of these changes is the idea that sovereign states are the only kind of entity that is endowed with an international legal personality, which was abandoned relatively long ago, following the end of World War II.
Previously, only sovereign states counted as juristic persons under international law, but that is no longer the case.
To put it simply, an international legal — or juristic — person is a subject that has personality in international law.
The actions of an international legal person are regulated and protected by international law. International legal persons are able to sign treaties with other international legal persons, and they enjoy full or partial legal immunity.
When their rights are violated, they are entitled to seek legal remedy from an international court. Of course, they must also carry out their obligations under international law.
As well as sovereign states, international persons include international organizations such as the UN and the EU, as well as special cases, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross. In other words, the examples that Shih gave — the EU and UN — are definitely not “incomplete international juristic entities,” and this mistaken idea should be corrected before it spreads any further.
In 1949, the International Court of Justice ruled that the UN had international legal personality and was therefore bound by international law and had to fulfill its obligations under it. As for the EU, which came into being step-by-step over time, following World War II, it obviously and undoubtedly also has international legal personality.
The EU is not just a regional international organization comprised of 28 independent and sovereign states, but it is also a tight-knit multilateral alliance that keeps deepening in many functions and spheres. All the structures of the EU are developing in the direction of forming a future European federation.
In 2011, the EU secured the status of “super observer” at the UN. Based on its status as a “major group,” the EU has the right to speak in the UN General Assembly and it has the right of reply in debates. The EU has 139 representative delegations stationed around the world, making it look very much like a political entity endowed with quasi-sovereign powers. The UN and the EU are both complete international juristic entities — there can be no doubt about that.
In the blueprint they have drawn up for future developments in relations between Taiwan and China, Shih and his colleagues suggest that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait form an “incomplete international juristic entity.” They also say that their five principles are like a set meal whose courses cannot be ordered separately. Shih and his team are pretty ambitious, but they are also thoroughly confused about sovereignty and international legal personality.
Unfortunately, they are also well off the mark in their understanding of international law.
Steve Wang is an assistant professor at Nanhua University’s Institute of European Studies.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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