ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an outline of the interesting and important problem of individuals as subjects of international law, and focuses on an original experiment in the field of public international law. This experiment was carried out on behalf of the Principal Allied Powers after the first World War in the territory of Upper Silesia, which is one of the largest coal, steel, zinc, lead and chemical-producing industrial centers in Europe. Numerous writers of the nineteenth century, although they were not partisans of the school of natural law—which was considered by many as quite obsolete at that time—proclaim the international personality of individuals as well as that of states. It would be superfluous to cite all the international lawyers who believe that states only are subjects of international law. Many maintain the traditional or "classical" principle of the law of nations which established itself firmly during the nineteenth century not only in practice—where it was age-old—but also in doctrine.
