Source: http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/rsiwa/rsiwa.html
Timestamp: 2013-12-07 18:21:44
Document Index: 288808323

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art. 1', 'Art. 1', 'Art. 4', 'Art. 12', 'Art. 16', 'Art. 20', 'Art. 28', 'Art. 28', 'Art. 34', 'Art. 40', 'Art. 42', 'Art. 42', 'Art. 49', 'Art. 55', 'art 1']

Professor of International Law Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge العربية
(Forthcoming) 中文
Mr. Riphagen was succeeded by G. Arangio-Ruiz (Italy), at the end of whose work at the Commission (from 1988 to 1996), after the submission of eight reports, the ILC adopted a first comprehensive text of the draft Articles, with commentaries, to which Mr. Arangio-Ruiz’s major contribution consisted in the sections on reparation, countermeasures, on the consequences of “international crimes” and on dispute settlement.
A similar position was taken by General Assembly resolution 65/10 of 6 December 2010. Although some delegations have pressed for a diplomatic conference to consider the Articles, others have preferred to maintain their status as an ILC text approved ad referendum by the General Assembly. In fact they have been very widely approved and applied in practice, including by the International Court of Justice.
The 59 Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts are divided into four Parts. Part One (The Internationally Wrongful Act of the State, Art. 1-27) is further divided into five Chapters (General Principles, Art. 1-3; Attribution of Conduct to a State, Art. 4-11; Breach of an International Obligation, Art. 12-15; Responsibility of a State in Connection with the Act of another State, Art. 16-19; Circumstances Precluding Wrongfulness, Art. 20-27). Part Two (Content of the International Responsibility of a State, Art. 28-41) is divided into three Chapters (General Principles, Art. 28-33; Reparation for Injuries, Art. 34-39; Serious Breaches of Obligations under Peremptory Norms of General International Law, Art. 40-41).
Part Three (The Implementation of the International Responsibility of a State, Art. 42-54) consists of two Chapters (Invocation of the Responsibility of a State, Art. 42-48; Countermeasures, Art. 49-54).
Part Four (Art. 55-59) contains the final five General Provisions of the text.
Basic Principles i. State responsibility as “secondary rules”
Already with the work of Special Rapporteur Ago, and more markedly with regard to the 1996 draft Articles as well as their final version, the rules on State responsibility may be described as “secondary rules”. Whereas the law relating to the content and the duration of substantive State obligations is determined by primary rules contained in a multitude of different instruments and in customary law, the Articles provide an overarching, general framework which sets the consequences of a breach of an applicable primary obligation. Otherwise the Articles would constantly risk trying to do too much, telling States what kinds of obligations they can have. ii. The foundations of State responsibility
Part One establishes the fundamental postulates defining the basic features of State responsibility for internationally wrongful acts. An initial, fundamental principle concerning State responsibility is expressed by article 1, which establishes: “[e]very international wrongful act of a State entails the international responsibility of that State”. It is of particular significance that such a provision is not limited, as had been proposed, to the responsibility of States towards other States, which would have significantly curtailed the scope of the obligations covered by the Articles and could have stifled the development of international law. Furthermore, article 1 makes no distinction between treaty and non-treaty obligations: no categorical differentiation is therefore drawn between responsibility ex contractu and ex delicto, nor is any distinction made, at this level of generality, between bilateral and multilateral obligations (see also article 12).
Article 2 sets out the required elements for the existence of an internationally wrongful act: (a) conduct attributable to the State, which (b) is inconsistent with its international obligations. One notable feature of this provision consists in the absence of any requirement concerning fault or a wrongful intent on the part of the State in order to ascertain the existence of an internationally wrongful act. This does not, of course, imply that the element of fault has no place in the law of State responsibility. Rather, it reflects the consideration that different primary rules on international responsibility may impose different standards of fault, ranging from “due diligence” to strict liability. The position expressed by the Articles indicates that fault is not necessarily required in every case for international responsibility to arise. It may be required, of course, in some or even many cases, but this determination is left to primary rules on State obligations, with the Articles taking a neutral position in this regard, neither requiring nor excluding these elements in any given case.
The attribution of responsibility to a State is also dealt with in relation to possible connections between a State and internationally wrongful acts of another State, in particular in cases of aid or assistance (article 16), direction and control (article 17) or coercion (article 18); these are included in Chapter IV of Part 1. The rationale underlying these provisions is that the State not directly committing the wrong is nonetheless held responsible if it has knowledge of the circumstances of the act and if the act would be, if committed by such State (or by the coerced State, in the absence of coercion), an internationally wrongful act. With regard to the fundamental notion of wrongfulness, Chapter V of Part One enumerates “circumstances precluding wrongfulness” – what, in a forensic context, would be called defences. These are: consent (article 20), self-defence (article 21), legitimate countermeasures (article 22; further elaborated upon in Part Three, Chapter II); force majeure (article 23); distress (article 24) and necessity (article 25). The consequences of State responsibility
Part Two of the Articles deals mainly with two issues: on the one hand, it specifies the most significant consequences of State responsibility for an internationally wrongful act, namely the obligations of cessation, non-repetition and reparation; on the other hand, it is concerned with a particular category of wrongful acts: those acts that, replacing the problematic category of “international crimes”, are now termed “serious breaches of obligations under peremptory norms of general international law”. Chapter I of Part Two sets out the consequences of an internationally wrongful act: such an act does not affect the continued duty by the responsible State to perform the obligation thus breached (article 29); if the breach is continuing, the responsible State is under an obligation to cease its conduct (article 30, paragraph a) and, if circumstances so require, to offer appropriate assurances and guarantees of non-repetition (article 30, paragraph b). In addition, the internationally wrongful act entails for the responsible State the duty to make full reparation for the injury caused (article 31).
For this reason, on the one hand, article 42 defines in a rather narrow way the concept of injured State (based mostly on article 60, paragraph 2 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties), while article 48 is concerned with the invocation of responsibility in the collective interest, i.e. also by non-injured States. Article 42 provides that the breach of an obligation entitles a State to invoke the responsibility of another State when the obligation is owed to that State individually or “is of such a character as radically to change the position of all the other States to which the obligation is owed with respect to the further performance of the obligation.” It should be noted that integral obligations are only those which operate in a strict all-or-nothing fashion, such that each State’s performance of the obligation is in effect conditioned upon performance by each other party (e.g., certain disarmament obligations). Human rights obligations are not, in this sense, integral, but may be better described as incremental obligations, and the failure to perform by one Party does not relieve other Parties from the duty to comply with them.
States entitled to invoke responsibility who are not individually injured by a breach are those described in article 48, which lists: (i) States belonging to a group holding a collective interest for the protection of which the obligation was established; (ii) every State seeking to invoke responsibility for a breach of an obligation owed to the international community as a whole. As with the definition of international responsibility in article 1, also article 48 avoids restricting the scope of obligations owed erga omnes by limiting their beneficiaries to States alone. In this sense, the concept of international community relevant for article 48 implies that this community does not consist exclusively of States and includes other entities, for example the United Nations, the European Union, the International Committee of the Red Cross. In general, an injured State has the right to elect the form of reparation that it considers more appropriate. Thus, it may prefer compensation to the possibility of restitution, or it may content itself with declaratory relief, generally or in relation to a particular aspect of its claim (article 43, paragraph 2). The choice of a form of reparation, together with the indication of the conduct that the responsible State should take in order to cease a continuing wrongful act, are possible aspects of the notice that the injured State should provide to the responsible State as a basis for enforcing its rights (article 43).
Countermeasures are allowed as a means to ensure cessation and reparation by the responsible State. Even if their effect is afflictive, therefore, they cannot be regarded as a punishment in itself or as retribution (article 49). From this substantive limitation derives the essentially temporary character of countermeasures, which are limited to the temporary non-performance of certain international obligations towards the responsible State (article 49, paragraph 2), and they should cease “as soon as the responsible State has complied with its obligations under Part Two in relation to the internationally wrongful act” (Article 53). Given their temporary character, they have to be devised in such a way as to permit the resumption of performance (article 49, paragraph 3) when and if compliance has been obtained. The fundamental quantitative and qualitative limitation upon countermeasures is the requirement of proportionality: article 51 provides that they “must be commensurate with the injury suffered, taking into account the gravity of the internationally wrongful act and the rights in question”. Further substantial limits to countermeasures are established by article 50, according to which certain fundamental substantive obligations may not be affected by countermeasures (the prohibition on the threat or use of force, fundamental human rights obligations, humanitarian obligations prohibiting reprisals and, generally, obligations under peremptory norms). Also unaffected by countermeasures are certain obligations concerned with maintaining channels of communication between the States concerned, in particular those related to dispute settlement procedures applicable between the interested parties and to the inviolability of diplomatic or consular agents, premises, archives and documents.
Article 52, paragraph (b), provides for the suspension of countermeasures where the States concerned are before a competent court or tribunal with the power to make binding decisions. But the prohibition of countermeasures while negotiations are being pursued in good faith was deleted from the final version of the Articles as too uncertain and indeterminate.
Lastly, the drafting of the Articles occasioned a debate on the opportunity to allow countermeasures to be taken by States other than the injured State. Such measures have been referred to as “collective countermeasures”, to indicate both cases where some or many States acted in concert and cases where the reacting State asserts a right to enact countermeasures in the public interest as a response to a breach of a multilateral obligation, or where the measures are coordinated by a number of involved States. While the current state of international law on collective countermeasures is limited and embryonic, States do not appear to have renounced all possibility of individual action in case of inaction of international organizations faced with humanitarian or other crises arising from serious breaches of collective obligations. Given this uncertain state of affairs, the final position adopted in the drafting of the Articles was to provide for a saving clause which reserves the position and leaves the final resolution of the matter to the further development of international law. Article 54 provides that the Chapter on countermeasures does not prejudice the right of any non-injured State entitled to invoke the responsibility of another State, to take “lawful measures against [the responsible State] to ensure cessation of the breach and reparation in the interests of the beneficiaries of the obligation breached”. Part IV
United Nations, General Assembly, Sixty-Fifth Session, Responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts : Compilation of decisions of international courts, tribunals and other bodies : Report of the Secretary-General (A/65/76);
J.R. Crawford, The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility: Introduction, Text and Commentaries (Cambridge University Press, 2002) (also published in French as Les articles de la C.D.I. sur la responsabilité de l’État. Introduction, texte et commentaires (Pedone, 2003), and in Spanish as Los Artículos de la Comisión de Derecho Internacional sobre la Responsibilidad Internacional del Estado. Introducción, texto y comentarios (Dykinson, 2004)); D.J. Bederman, D. Bodansky, D.D. Caron, J.R. Crawford, J.R. Crook, R. Rosenstock, E.B. Weiss, Symposium: the International Law Commission’s State Responsibility Articles, 96 AJIL 773-890 (2002);
By resolution 799 (VIII) of 7 December 1953, the General Assembly requested the Commission to undertake “the codification of the principles of international law governing State responsibility”, as soon as it considered it advisable. At its sixth session, in 1954, the Commission considered a memorandum by Mr. F.V. García-Amador (A/CN.4/80), describing the background and scope of General Assembly resolution 799 (VIII), but in view of the Commission’s heavy agenda, it was decided not to begin work on the subject for the time being (A/CN.4/88). At its seventh session, in 1955, the Commission decided to begin the study of State responsibility and appointed Mr. F.V. Garcia Amador as Special Rapporteur for the topic (A/CN.4/94). At the next six sessions of the Commission, from 1956 to 1961, the Special Rapporteur presented six reports on the topic (A/CN.4/96; A/CN.4/106; A/CN.4/111; A/CN.4/119; A/CN.4/125; and A/CN.4/134 and Add.1), dealing, on the whole, with the question of responsibility for injuries to the persons or property of aliens. By resolution 1686 (XVI) of 18 December 1961, the General Assembly recommended that the Commission continue its work on State responsibility. In pursuance of this resolution, the Commission, at its fourteenth session, in 1962, debated its future programme of work and the proposal of giving priority to the topic of State responsibility met with the general approval of the Commission. A Sub-Committee on State Responsibility, headed by Mr. Roberto Ago, was established, tasked with submitting a preliminary report with suggestions concerning the future study of the topic (A/CN.4/148).
At its fifteenth session, in 1963, after unanimously approving the report of the Sub-Committee (A/CN.4/152), the Commission appointed Mr. Roberto Ago as Special Rapporteur for the topic (A/CN.4/163). The General Assembly, in resolution 1902 (XVIII) of 18 November 1963, recommended that the Commission should “continue its work on State responsibility, taking into account the views expressed at the eighteenth session of the General Assembly and the report of the Sub-Committee on State Responsibility and giving due consideration to the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations”. In its resolution 2272 (XXII) of 1 December 1967, the General Assembly recommended that the Commission expedite the study of the topic of State responsibility. By resolution 2400 (XXIII) of 11 December 1968, it recommended that the Commission “make every effort to begin substantive work” on the topic as from its next session. At its twenty-first session (A/CN.4/220), in 1969, the Commission, after examining the first report of Mr. Ago (A/CN.4/217 and Add.l), requested him to prepare a report containing a first set of draft articles on the topic, the aim being “to establish, in an initial part of the proposed draft articles, the conditions under which an act which is internationally illicit and which, as such, generates an international responsibility, can be imputed to a State”.
Mr. Riphagen presented six further reports to the Commission throughout his tenure, focused on Part Two of the draft articles, concerning content, forms and degrees of international responsibility, and Part Three, concerning “implementation” (mise en oeuvre) of international responsibility and the settlement of disputes (see A/CN.4/344 and Corr.1, Corr.2; A/CN.4/354 and Corr.1 and Add.1 & 2; A/CN.4/366 and Add.1 & Add.1/Corr.1; A/CN.4/380 and Corr.1; A/CN.4/389 and Corr.1 & Corr.2; A/CN.4/397 and Corr.1 & 2 and Add.1 & Corr.1) At its thirty-ninth session, in 1987, the Commission appointed Mr. Gaetano Arangio-Ruiz as Special Rapporteur for the topic (see A/42/10). Mr. Arangio-Ruiz presented eight reports to the Commission during his tenure (see A/CN.4/416 & Corr.1 & 2 and Add.1 & Corr.1; A/CN.4/425 & Corr.1 and Add.1 & Corr.1; A/CN.4/440 and Add.1; A/CN.4/444 and Add.1-3; A/CN.4/453 and Add.1-3; A/CN.4/461 and Add.1-3 & Add.2/Corr.1; A/CN.4/469 and Add.1-2; A/CN.4/476 & Corr.1, Add. 1). At its forty-eight session, in 1996, the Commission completed the first reading of Parts Two and Three of the draft articles and decided, in accordance with articles 16 and 21 of its Statute, to transmit the draft articles, provisionally adopted by the Commission on first reading, to Member States for comments and observations (A/51/10). By resolution 51/160 of 16 December 1996, the General Assembly expressed its appreciation to the Commission for the completion of the provisional draft articles and urged Member States to submit their comments and observations, as requested by the Commission. At its forty-ninth session, in 1997, the Commission appointed Mr. James Crawford as Special Rapporteur on this topic. At the same session, the Commission began the second reading of the draft articles and established a Working Group on State Responsibility to address matters dealing with the second reading of the topic (A/52/10). At its fiftieth session, in 1998, the Commission received the first report of Mr. Crawford (A/CN.4/490 and Add.1, Add.2, Add.3, Add.4, Add.5, Add.6, Add.7). At the same session, the Commission established a Working Group to assist the Special Rapporteur in the consideration of various issues during the second reading of the draft articles (A/53/10).
Text of the Draft Articles
Selected preparatory documents (in chronological order) Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its first Session, 12 April 1949 (A/CN.4/13 and Corr. 1-3, reproduced in Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1949, vol. I)
General Assembly resolution 799 (VIII) of 7 December 1953 (Request for the codification of principles of international law governing State responsibility) Request of the General Assembly for the Codification of the Principles of International Law Governing State Responsibility, Memorandum by Mr. F.V. Garcia-Amador (A/CN.4/80, 10 March 1954) (Spanish only)
Report of the International Law Commission Covering the Work of its Sixth Session, 3 June - 28 July 1954 (A/2693, reproduced in Yearbook of the International Commission 1954, vol. II (A/CN.4/88)) Report of the International Law Commission Covering the Work of its Seventh Session, 2 May - 8 July 1955 (A/2934, reproduced in Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1955, vol. II (A/CN.4/94)) Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1956, vol. II (Report on International Responsibility by the Special Rapporteur, Mr. F.V. Garcia-Amador (A/CN.4/96, 20 January 1956)) Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of its Eighth Session, 23 April - 4 July 1956 (A/3159, reproduced in Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1956, vol. II (A/CN.4/104)) Second Report on International Responsibility by F.V. Garcia Amador, Special Rapporteur, (A/CN.4/106, 15 February 1957)
Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1971, vol. II(1) (Third report on State responsibility, by Mr. Roberto Ago, Special Rapporteur, The internationally wrongful act of the State, source of international responsibility (A/CN.4/246 and Add.1-3, 5 March, 7 April, 28 April and 18 May 1971)) Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its twenty-third session, 26 April – 30 July 1971 (A/8410/Rev.1, reproduced in Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1971, vol. II(1))