Jacques Bellezit, University of Strasbourg
ABSTRACT:
In Western European political history, among the Sovereign Prince's traditional powers is the power to pronounce law and render justice (juris- dictio).
However, step by step, this traditional power was contradicted by the constitution of modern, Westphalian States: Princes do not proceed to juris- dictio on their own name but on the name of their States.
The institutionalisation of international relations following the 1814-1815 Vienna Congress, and of international jurisdictions since the end of the 19th Century and the end of World War II, this juris-dictio power is, in international disputes, little by little relinquished to top-level legal specialists who themselves are or become nobilities, with or without such titles. Princely families can, on their side, may have become applicants before national or international courts but might, in the same time, have their word to say in the evolution of international law conceptions. This article aims to document this mutation.
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