 Following the peace of Westphalia, and for about 300 years, states remained the only actors of international relations and also the only subjects of international law. And this enduring reality is reflected in the adjective international, which is used to characterize the relations and the law existing outside the internal and domestic context of every state. It's where the founders and the masters of international law, they created that legal order for them, its norms and rules were created by them, and those norms and rules were applicable between them and between them only. And legal doctrine affirmed for a long time that by nature, or by essence if you prefer, that by nature international law was necessarily confined to the relations between states and was only applicable to them. It was said that it was impossible for international law to apply to any other entities than states. Well reality proved that this dogmatic view was wrong, and indeed as the need for more enduring cooperation between states grew, states began to establish between them entities that were legally distinct from them, entities that were designed to serve certain specific purposes, like managing a river between two riparian states or organizing the exchange of mailposts over borders. States established international organizations, and it was soon, although not that easily, it was conceded that those organizations could also have a legal personality under international law. And furthermore, after the terrible crimes and persecutions that took place during the Second World War, it was felt necessary to limit through treaties the way states could exercise their sovereign powers over individuals and groups by protecting fundamental rights and freedoms. International human rights were born making clear that individuals could also be the bearers of rights under international law. And through the development of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunal, international law was also used to prosecute and convict individuals. And this proved that not only international law could confer rights to individuals, but that it could also impose obligations on them. There is therefore no inherent impossibility to use instruments governed by international law to create rights and obligations for other subjects than states. And in the last 30 or 40 years now, corporations were afforded substantial and procedural rights under bilateral investment treaties, proving again that international law was not inherently limited to the realm of states. And of course, in addition to all those developments, the respect for international law, its development and improvement is a growing concern for what is called the International Civil Society, which is made of hundreds of non-governmental organizations, NGOs, having all sorts of concerns from the protection of the environment to women's rights. So it is clear that today states are not anymore the only entities concerned with international law, and that international law is no longer their thing. However, it is important at this point to make a few conceptual distinctions. And let us see that in the next video.