 Here are the distinctions to be made. First, one must distinguish between the actors of international relations and the subjects of international law. The actors of international relations are all the entities and persons that, in one way or another, appear on the international stage. They interact in international relations. Then those could be states, those could be international organizations like the United Nations, the WTO or NATO, big transnational corporations, or they could also be large NGOs like Amnesty International or Médecins Sans Frontières. It could be also individuals like a religious leader, a charismatic prisoner, an opponent, or a wealthy businessman running an important charity of his own in developing countries. This could also be terrorist groups, a rebellious movement fighting a civil war, or it could be the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. It could also be a category of people making together a distinct group, having a bearing on international relations like migrants for instance. Any person, any group or entity having some bearing, some impact on international relations could be said to be an actor of such relations. All this is of course important but as this course is about international law, what is of interest to us is the category of the subjects of international law. And being a subject of international law means something different than just having a bearing and impact on international relations. Having a subject of international law means having a legal personality under international law in contrast, even if often in addition, to being a subject of domestic law. And here I need to make another conceptual distinction and this is because one can have a broad or a narrow understanding of what it means to have a legal personality. Under the broad definition, having legal personality means having rights and or obligations under the relevant legal order. And in that sense, one could say that individuals are now subjects of international law because they are conferred rights and also obligations under international law. International human rights protect individuals while each of us is bound under international law not to commit certain grave crimes like genocide or war crimes. In that sense, we as individuals, we are subjects of international law. However, our legal personality is only passive. We do not create by ourselves those rights and obligations that are bestowed upon us by international legal instruments. We do not master those instruments. Those instruments are mastered by other subjects and most notably by states and international organizations. And because of this, those latter subjects can be said to have an active personality under international law. And this is the narrow definition of legal personality. Having rights and or obligations under international law is not sufficient. That matters is having the legal capacity to participate in the creation of new rights and new obligations at least for oneself and to do that through legal instruments that are instruments of international law. The distinction between active and passive legal personality is not much different from the distinction between being a subject of regulation and an object of regulation. Between regulating and being regulated. Of course, the distinction is dogmatic and sometimes things are a bit blurred. And for instance, it is difficult to decide if the capacity to vindicate bestowed rights is an element of active or passive personality. And let me illustrate this. Today, individuals and corporations are not only conferred rights under human rights treaties or under investment treaties but they are increasingly given access to redress mechanisms including sometimes courts and tribunals that allow them to vindicate those rights at the international level against the public authorities that failed to respect those protected rights. Does that make individuals or corporations active subjects of international law? Maybe, but it might be a bit confusing to say that since neither individuals nor corporations have yet the capacity to make new rules of international law and they are unlikely to acquire such capacity soon. However, there is no need to decide on all those dogmatic issues and the distinction between active and passive legal personality has primarily an educational purpose. It is there to help us to classify and to categorize. And nearly all the examples I gave above, from states to members of terrorist groups could be said to relate to actors of international relations having some legal personality under international law. And this is because even terrorists have criminal obligations imposed unto them by international law. But those examples make also clear that even within the two main categories of active and passive legal personality legal personality can vary to a great extent. For instance, the active legal personality of an international organization is very different from the one of a state. And moreover, one personality of one organization is not the same of the personality of another organization. In other words, personality under international law comes in many forms and degrees once it is defined broadly as having rights obligations under international law. In an advisory opinion about the legal personality of the United Nations and its capacity to claim reparation for the injury resulting from the killing of one of its envoy, the International Court of Justice considered that, I quote, the subjects of law in any legal system are not necessarily identical in their nature or in the extent of their rights. And their nature depends upon the needs of the community. Throughout its history, the development of international law has been influenced by the requirements of international life, end of quote. And that was in 1949 about the personality of an international organization. But the same reasons, based on the needs of the community, can explain the emergence of new categories of subjects of international law. Subjectivity under the law stems from the social needs at a certain time and it is not a unified category. The extent of the rights and the nature of the subject can vary considerably. In this introductory course, we'll concentrate on the two main subjects of international law having an active legal personality that is states and international organizations. As they remain to a large extent the only makers of international law from a formal point of view, it is important to understand what those abstract entities are from the point of view of international law and how they come to existence. But make no mistake, concentrating our attention on states and on international organizations does not mean that they are the only subjects of international law today. It is just that addressing the issue of individuals, corporations or other non-state actors as subjects of international human rights law goes far beyond the scope of this course. Even if, for instance, human rights is an essential field of international law today, while international investment law is a growing field today.