 You have probably noticed that when I introduced the concept of international organization in the previous video, I did not mention its legal personality. And this is because it is possible to have an international organization without a distinct legal personality, a personality distinct from its members. And let me explain this. When they create a new organization, states may decide to establish it from a material point of view, but not from a legal point of view. They may decide to create a bureaucracy that is not legally distinct from themselves. They may create an institution that is functionally distinct from their respective national administrations, an institution that will be truly international for that purpose. But that will nevertheless not be an institution legally distinct from each of them. In such a case, the international organization will simply act as a common organ of the members. What the organization does will be considered as the joint action of the member states themselves. Each of them will be responsible for what the organization has done because the organization is their common organ since it has no separate legal personality. And for instance, for instance, during 50 years, the Benelux, which as its name indicates is an organization established between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, the Benelux for 50 years had no separate international legal personality from the three member states. Therefore, the Benelux could not become party to any treaty on its own. It was for the three states, the three member states to do so, not for the organization. The situation changed with the entry into force of the new Benelux Treaty in 2012, which confers international legal personality to the Benelux for limited purposes. And indeed, more and more often, in the last decades, international organizations have been endowed with a separate legal personality. And this may result from the very text of the basic treaty establishing the organization, but also, more strangely, and as we shall see, this may also result from the system of the treaty as a whole and despite its silence on the issue of legal personality or on the nature of such personality. And let me turn first to the easiest case. That is the case when the basic treaty establishing the organization explicitly states that the organization has an international legal personality. And in such a case, it is obvious that the organization will enjoy a legal personality under international law. The organization will be a separate legal entity from its member states. It will be a subject of international law of its own. And as a matter of principle, the conduct of the organization will not be the conduct of its member states and the organization will bear responsibility for its own conduct. Now what happens if the basic treaty establishing the organization does not say anything about its legal personality or what happens if it simply says that the organization shall have legal personality without stating the international nature of such personality? Well, in those cases, it is nevertheless possible, on a case-by-case basis, it is nevertheless possible to deduce the existence of such international legal personality from the system of the treaty establishing the organization. And this was authoritatively made clear in an advisory opinion delivered in 1949 by the International Court of Justice about the issue of reparation for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations. And we've already come across that opinion, but let me quickly recall the facts and the legal issues. In 1948, a Swedish diplomat, Kant Folke Bernadotte, was appointed UN mediator in Palestine. He tabled several peace proposals and those proposals infuriated many in the region. Together with other UN agents, Kant Bernadotte was gunned down in Jerusalem during an attack on his motorcade. The attack was carried out by members of an extremist Israeli group. The Security Council immediately condemned the attack, while Israeli authorities were reluctant to investigate and to prosecute the authors of the assassination. And when they did, they were very lenient. The General Assembly of the UN requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice about the capacity of the organization to bring a claim of reparation against the government of Israel for injury resulting from the killing of its envoy. And this raised two legal issues. First, was the UN endowed with an international legal personality so as to be able to bring a claim of reparation in its own name? Second, could such a claim be brought against Israel, which had just declared its independence and which was not a member state of the UN? In other words, if the UN had an international legal personality, does that personality exist vis-à-vis its member states only, or also vis-à-vis all other states, non-member states? The Charter of the UN is silent on the legal personality of the organization. However, the court looked beyond that silence of the Charter and it considered that because the organization had organs having special tasks, because the member states were bound to assist the organization in its actions and to accept and carry out the decisions of the city council, because the organization had legal capacity, privileges and immunities in the territory of the member states, because the United Nations was entitled to conclude agreements with the member states because of all those elements and also because of the ends, the purposes for which the UN had been established, the attribution of an international personality was, said the court, indispensable. The court concluded that, I quote, the UN could not carry out the intentions of its founders if it was devoid of an international personality, end of quote. In other words, the court deduced from the system of the Charter as a whole the intention of the drafters of the Charter to establish an organization having an international legal personality. Such intention may exist despite the silence of the basic treaty, but it may also exist in a situation where the basic treaty refers simply to the legal personality of the organization without specifying that such personality exists under international law. Well, so far on the first issue, the issue of the existence of an international legal personality. Let me turn now to the second issue, which was about, you remember, the capacity to claim reparation vis-à-vis a non-member state. On that second issue, the court found that because the UN was an international person, it had the capacity to bring a claim for the injury it suffered. Moreover, the court concluded that it could bring such a claim against the government of a non-member state because the international legal personality of the UN did not only exist in the relations between the organization and its member states. The court said that Israel as a non-member state would not be justified in raising an objection according to which the UN had no capacity to present to it a claim against it. The court stated that its, I quote, its opinion is that 50 states representing the vast majority of the members of the international community had the power, in conformity with international law, to bring into being an entity possessing objective international personality and not merely personality recognized by them alone, together with the capacity to bring international claims end of quote. By such words, the court upheld an objective approach to the issue of the international legal personality of international organizations. As legal subjects under international law, international organizations are subject for all states, not only for their member states. Of course, the obligations existing within the framework of the organizations cannot be binding on states that are not members of the organization, but it does not mean that those non-member states can ignore the legal existence of the organization, or rather non-members can ignore it, but that attitude will not affect the legal personality of the organization, as its personality does not depend on the consent of third states. Let me tackle now a last issue. As I said earlier, some treaties establishing international organizations simply state that they have a legal personality without specifying that such personality exists under international law. Then as we've seen, one could very well deduce from the system of the treaty that the legal personality so mentioned is a personality under international law. However, sometimes the organization will additionally be endowed with a legal capacity under the domestic laws of its member states for the purpose of, for instance, buying goods or renting offices, hiring staff and so on. Usually the basic treaty will then explicitly say that the organization has such internal law capacity. And for instance, according to article 335 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, the Union enjoys, it is said, I quote, the most extensive legal capacity accorded to legal persons under the laws of each of the member states. So the important point is simply to see that the capacity of the organization under the national laws of its member states does not exclude its legal personality under international law, and that both personalities are perfectly compatible with each other, even if they must not always exist together.