Religious confessions in international order

• Author: Jaime Bonet Navarro
• Pages: 309-330

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JAIME BONET NAVARRO

Religious confessions in international order

1. Presence of religious entities in international society

Religious confessions are always present in international society, and

they develop its activities in various forms. This is the case of some

entities belonging to Catholic Church: the Holy See1, Vatican City State,

and the Sovereign Order of Malta. There have also been other religious

institutions – Catholic and non-Catholic – which have enjoyed the

international legal personality or, at least, they have acted through forms

of international presence similar to secular States, but they do not exist

currently. Within Catholic institutions there were the old Papal States, the

State of Teutonic Order with vast territories around the Baltic Sea, and other

States in the hands of religious authorities, bishops and archbishops into the

Germanic Holy Roman Empire. These are the Principalities-Archbishoprics

of Salzburg, Cologne and Magdeburg, and the Principalities-Bishoprics

of Liege, Lübeck and Freising.

Nowadays, there is only one non-Catholic religious entity with

international legal personality, linked to the Islamic religion: the

Organization of Islamic Conference. It is due to the fact that international

public law recognizes international legal personality to international

organizations. It is different in the case of Protestant organizations or

associations that have an international activity without having the status

of international organizations, and therefore, without international legal

personality. In the past there were only two non-Catholic entities which

1 For a brief bibliographic selection on this issue: J.M. VIEJO XIMÉNEZ, Posición ju-

rídica de la Iglesia católica en el orden internacional, in Revista Española de Derecho

Canónico 158, 2005, 145-218; G. BARBERINI, Chiesa e Santa Sede nell’ordinamento in-

ternazionale: esame delle norme canoniche, Torino 2003; J.J. RUDA SANTOLARIA, Los

sujetos de Derecho internacional: el caso de la Iglesia católica y del Estado de la Ciudad

del Vaticano, Lima 1995; G. ARANGIO-RUIZ, Note sulla personalità internazionale della

Santa Sede, in La politica internazionale della Santa Sede 1965-1990, Perugia 1992, 25-

38; M. TEDESCHI, La posizione internazionale della Santa Sede, in Vecchi e nuovi saggi di

Diritto Eclesiástico, Milano 1990, 181-191; S. FERLITO, L’attiv ità internazionale della

Santa Sede, Milano 1988; T. MALUWA, The Holy See and the Concept of International

Legal Personality: Some Reflections, in Comparative and International Law Journal of

Southern Africa, 1986, 1-26; J.A. BARBERIS, Los sujetos del Derecho internacional ac-

tual, Madrid 1984; H. WAGNON, La personnalité du Saint-Siège en Droit international. Les

faits, les doctrines, in Storia Diplomatica 30, 1977, 321-342, and I. CARDINALE, The Holy

See and International Order, Gerrards Cross 1976.

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acted in international society with international subjectivity: the Islamic

Caliphate and the ancient Tibetan Buddhist State, with the Dalai Lama as

head of State (in exile) of Tibet. In the other hand, in Orthodoxy, Mount

Athos, was close to be established as an independent State, but historical

circumstances prevented it.

Epistemological considerations will help to determine the scope of

our work. First, we may wonder whether confessional States would be

a mean for the intervention of an official religion in the international

order. In my opinion, this question has a negative answer because the

State with an official religion is who has an international legal

personality; but official religion does not, even when the confessional

State acts for a purpose or deployed for religious reasons. So, when

the Iranian head of State makes a declaration of hostility towards

Israel, it is an action of the Iranian State, and it is not an act of Islamic

religion. However, the acts of the Holy See in the international order

are both secular and spiritual because it is the top of the Catholic

Church and it has its own international legal personality.

Our second ask is about the countries where the head of State is a

religious authority. It is clear in the cases of the Holy See, Vatican City

State or the Order of Malta. Another case of a catholic head of Stat is in

Andorra, wich it is, actually, a Co-principality where one of two co-

princes is a bishop, specifically, that of La Seo de Urgel2, a Spanish city

near Andorra. But this is a different reality due the fact that Andorra acts

in international life as a secular State, but only has a bishop like a head of

State for historical reasons a bishop, besides the French President.

2. Current forms of presence

2.1. International presence of the Catholic Church and its entities in the

international society

The presence and international activity of the Holy See and the

Vatican City State is a notorious fact, very much studied by the doctrine3;

but Sovereign Order of Malta, another Catholic institution with international

legal personality is not so well known4.

2 M.L. JORDÁN VILLACAMPA, El Obispo de La Seo de Urgel, Jefe del Estado, in

Laicidad y libertades: escritos jurídicos 1, 2001, 125-136.

3 J. BONET NAVARRO, La presencia y actuación de la Iglesia Católica en la vida

internacional, in Libro en Homenaje del Profesor Rafael Navarro Valls (in press).

4 In a different context, they also are international Catholic associations of Catholic

with only canonical legal personality. M. DELGADO MOLINA, Asociaciones internacionales de

fieles, International Associations of the Faithful, in Ius Canonicum 99, 2010, 9-29.