Description

Business corporations have long posed a problem for public international law. On the one hand,
the conventional wisdom is that classical international law does not recognize corporations as
international legal persons. States are the paradigmatic subjects of international law, joined in the
20th century by independent international organizations. But while transnational businesses and
cross-border business activities have long been recognized as objects of international legal
regulation, companies are not typically understood as subjects of international law in their own
right.

On the other hand, a range of international legal regimes have already endowed private
corporations with all of the formal hallmarks of international legal personality: the capacity to
bear international legal rights and duties (vis-à-vis states); the capacity to bring international legal
claims (against states); and even the capacity to author rules of international law (by agreement
with states).

This lecture makes the case that private corporations are already international legal persons.
However, unlike states and international organizations, the international legal status of
corporations is ad hoc rather than categorical—addressed irregularly and inconsistently across
different treaty-based regimes, including human rights treaties and international investment
agreements.

As a result, corporations have long been able to enjoy the powers and privileges of international
legal personality while completely avoiding its associated liabilities. Perhaps the time has come
to bring them more fully into the system.