Learning objective 1: when is a state responsible?
A legal system must have rules specifying what happens when subject violates its obligations and
how an aggrieved party can vindicate its rights. The primary rules define the obligations a state must
follow to comply with the law. Secondary rules determine the consequences of violating the primary
rule.
art. 1 ILC = every international wrongful act of a state entails the international responsibility of that
state. Art. 2 ILC stipulates that the state responsibility consists of 3 elements:
1. International obligation
2. A breach of that obligation (act or omission) and
3. That conduct must be attributable to a state
The ICJ referred to the elements in the Tehran Hostage case 56. The court had to determine:
1. How far the acts in question may be regarded as imputable to the Iranian state (element 3)
2. Their compatibility or incompatibility with the obligation of Iran (element 2)
The case illustrates that both acts and omissions can constitute wrongful conduct. Iran had breached
it’s obligations by failing to protect the US premises from Iranian protesters.
National legal systems generally operate with different forms of liability depending on the primary
obligations. Art. 12 ILC states that an international obligation is breached by a state when an act of
that state is not in conformity with what is required of it by that obligation.
Attribution of conduct – element 3
Only the conduct of a state’s own organs or of other individuals or actor who have acted under the
control of such organs is attributable to a state.
- Art. 4 ILC = all conduct of state organs is considered an act of the state.
- Art. 5 ILC = all conduct of individuals and entities that exercise governmental authority in the
absence of their status as a state organ in the formal sense. An organ that is not an organ
under art. 4, but which is empowered by the law of that state to exercise elements of the
governmental authority.
- Art. 6 ILC = covers the situation where a state places one of its organs at the disposal of
another state, such as health service units in crisis situations. The acts of the loaned organs
are attributed to the receiving and not the sending state.
- Art. 7 ILC = ultra vires is used to describe an act that requires legal authority but is done
without it, or which is done beyond the instructions/competences that have been given. A
state remains responsible in cases where the organs, individual, or entity acted contrary to
orders and instructions or in excess of authority.
o A state is not responsible for the acts of private individuals, but there are exceptions:
responsibility for the acts committed by private persons/organizations that are linked
to or supported by the state.
- Art. 8 ILC = the conduct of a person or group of persons shall be considered as an act of a
state, if the person or group of persons is in fact acting on the instructions of, or under the
direction of that state while carrying out the conduct. Nicaragua & genocide 379
- Art. 10 ILC = the acts of insurrectional movements are not attributable to the state, unless
this insurrectional movement becomes the new government of the state or establishes a
new state in part of the territory of the pre-existing state.
- Art. 11 ILC = conduct which is not attributable to a state under the preceding articles shall
nevertheless be considered an act of that state if and to the extent that the state
acknowledge and adopts the conduct in question as its own.
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