The Individual Facing International Law / Cuban Law Association, Argelio M.Guerra

Atty. Argelio M. Guerra

With regards to the most basic concept on the subject of a legal relationship, defined as those who participate in the relationship and have the ability to claim rights and assume obligations, we can assume that if this legal relationship is of an international character, then the subjects are participating in these international relations have rights and duties, and that they exercise them within the framework and on the basis of international law.

Both classic international law as well as the most contemporary international public law assume that sovereign states are the principle subjects of international law, and this is the case because these subjects are the only ones endowed with sovereignty and in whose will to be bound by international order rests the foundation of the sources of international law. It is also true that the current recognition and widespread practice of establishing the individual as an immediate and direct subject of international law in those situations that affect his life, his work, his freedom.

This tendency has become larger since the second half of the 20th century in which the horrors and crimes of the Second World War established the ability of the individual to be a subject of international law.

The League of nations tried to set a minimum paradigm on matters of Human Rights to be guaranteed by states, and the United Nations elevates those to a new dimension for perpetrators of genocide to answer for such outrages in international order.

The International Criminal Court was established for this reason and it refers in its statutes to the obligations of the individual person, who is endowed with the ability to hold accountable a state that fails to comply with its obligations under International Law.

September 25 2012