CYIL vol. 12 (2021)

alla tymofeyeva CYIL 12 (2021) one of the elements of the NGO test, namely, ownership of the company by the state, and submitted that municipal unitary enterprises with the right of economic control did not satisfy that criterion. The ECtHR did not agree with the line of argumentation of the Russian government and detected that municipal bodies are “a public authority” within the ECHR meaning, and accordingly it is competent ratione personae to examine their actions. 48 It is possible to conclude that the decision-making of the ECtHR concerning the responsibility of the states for the conduct of public corporations is in line with the principles established by general public international law, in particular within the ARSIWA. In some cases, 49 the ECtHR directly refers to the ARSIWA to confirm its position. In the majority of its judgments and decisions, the ECtHR decides based on its own principles established in the previous case-law. As its standard, the ECtHR does not specify whether the exact act or omission of a public corporation should be seen as the conduct of organs of the state (Article 4 of the ARSIWA), the conduct of an entity exercising elements of governmental authority (Article 5 of the ARSIWA), or the conduct directed or controlled by the state (Article 8 of the ARSIWA). It is satisfied with the conclusion that the public corporation in question is a ‘governmental organisation’ for the purposes of Article 34 of the ECHR. 50 As a result, the state party to this treaty may not avoid responsibility for the conduct of public corporations. Conclusions The current research was conducted with the purpose of examining the legal standing of public corporations under the ECHR while also considering the concept of their subjectivity in public international law. For the purposes of this study, a public corporation was defined as an entity created by the state to exercise functions of governmental authority, which participates in activities that are also conducted by private companies. Analysis of the ECHR demonstrated that by no means all public corporations can become successful applicants before the ECtHR. Consequently, not all types of public corporations can be seen, at least partially, as subjects of international law. The ECtHR restricts the right to individual application (and accordingly subjectivity) of local and national territorial authorities such as municipalities, including their subdivisions and the companies established by them. The ECtHR was also reluctant to recognise the applicant status to educational institutions regarding them to be the part of a state structure. However, the state-owned companies, which enjoyed sufficient institutional and operational independence from the state were allowed to submit their complaints with the ECtHR and obtained the status of ‘non-governmental organisation’ within the meaning of Article 34 of the ECHR. In order to determine whether a specific public corporation falls within the category ‘non-governmental organisation’, the ECtHR applies the so called ‘NGO test’ described in the second section of the paper. This test is not only utilised by the ECtHR when the case concerns a submission from the public corporation, but also when it has to evaluate whether 48 Liseytseva and Maslov v. Russia , nos. 39483/05 and 40527/10, § 151, 9 October 2014. 49 See Muminović and 3 other applications v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, no. 14738/16, communicattion as of 20 December 2017 and Kotov v. Russia [GC], no. 54522/00, § 30, 3 April 2012. 50 See e.g. Východoslovenská Vodárenská Spoločnos , a.s. v. Slovakia , no. 40265/07, § 37, 2 July 2013 and JKP Vodovod Kraljevo v. Serbia , nos. 57691/09 and 19719/10, § 28, 16 October 2018.

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