In general the objects of the principles of international law are the various independent nations or states of the world. Individuals are concerned, in general, only in relation to their status as citizens of some particular country.

"It is true that occasionally individuals are interested in the questions raised, and are sometimes even the cause of international complications, perhaps of war, but it is not as individuals that public international law interferes in their behalf or condemns them. It is because individuals necessarily form a constituent part of every State, parts of which the nation as a whole is made up; and as no injury can be inflicted on one part of the body or by one member without the participation of the whole, so no member of the body politic can be injured without damage to the material interests, the dignity, and the honor of the whole. It is because of this blow to or by the State that public international law interferes in such matters."1