Inter-regional organisations – contemporary participants in international legal relations or new subjects of international law: is there a difference?

• Main Author: Davorin Lapaš
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Splitu 2016-01-01
• Series: Zbornik Radova Pravnog Fakulteta u Splitu
• Subjects: interregional organizations; European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation; Euroregional Co-operation Groupings; subjects of international law
• Online Access: http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/232414
• ISSN: 0584-9063; 1847-0459

Interregional organizations (IROs) gathering in their membership various sub-State entities of different States have appeared in the recent decades as a new form of institutionalized international cooperation but on the sub-State level. The entities like European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation (EGTCs) and Euroregional Co-operation Groupings (ECGs), Association of European Border Regions (AEBR), Assembly of European Regions (AER), or Euroregions that can be found under different names such as “euregios”, “euregions”, “crossborder” or “transfrontier associations”, “communautés d’intérêts”, “working communities” etc., equally as so-called hybrid or quasi-IROs (QUAIROs), have undoubtedly achieved some of the elements of international legal personality. Some of them conclude treaties with States and IGOs, the others send and receive representatives in their relations with States and IGOs. Starting from the understanding of international personality as primarily a participation of an entity in international legal relations, the presentation analyzes the place and role of these IGO-like entities in contemporary international community having in mind that the subjects of international law appear, exist and die following the meta-juridical logic of functionality in international relations rather than due to a doctrinal “recognition”.