Local legal relations have evolved steadily over the past twenty years, so now we are witnessing a redefinition of their concept, with the purpose of overcoming the traditional local autonomy in recognition of certain international legal capacity of local communities to participate in forms of decentralized cooperation. The goal of our research is to identify new actors in the international relations, local communities, which under EU law and the Council of Europe acquire certain powers that would allow them, at least theoretically, employment among secondary actors on the stage of international law. The study presents an examination of the documents governing international or local cooperation with the ultimate aim to highlight the consequences of these forms of cooperation, which they produce in the context of administrative decentralization.