STATE OF WAR AS AN INTERNATIONAL LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL INSTITUTION

The subject of the article is an analysis of the state of war from an international legal and constitutional perspective. Until the beginning of the 20th century, international law recognized the right of a state to wage war as an important manifestation of its sovereignty. Attempts to limit this right boiled down to the development of a just war concept. It was only the United Nations Charter that introduced a ban on the use of force in international relations or the threat of its use. The only permissible exception is the exercise of the right to self-defense, either individually or collectively. Thus, the provisions on declaring war (declaring a state of war) found in the constitutions of some states acquired only a competence value. They define the competence of state organs in the event of an armed conflict. In the Constitution of the Third Republic of Poland (1997), the state of war is regulated in Article 116. The substantive prerequisites for the declaration of a state of war are identical to the implementation of the right of the state to individual or collective self-defense, admitted by the Charter of the United Nations.