scholarly journals The Dual Legality of the Rules of International Organizations

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Gasbarri
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Legal Nature ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

This paper examines the legal nature of the ‘rules of international organizations’ as defined by the International Law Commission in its works on the law of treaties and on international responsibility. Part 1 introduces the debate with an example concerning the nature of un Security Council anti-terrorism resolutions. Part 2 challenges the four theories of the rules envisaged by scholarship. Part 3 is an attempt to examine the characteristics of the legal system produced by international organizations taking advantage of analytical jurisprudence, developing a theory of their legal nature defined as ‘dual legality’. Part 4 concludes by appraising the effects of the dual legality looking at the law of treaties, international responsibility and invalidity for ultra vires acts.

International Responsibility

2021 ◽  
pp. 176-207
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Gasbarri
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Member States ◽  
Legal Nature ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Final Consequence ◽  
Law Commission

The final consequence of the dual legal nature discussed in the book concerns the international responsibility of international organizations. In particular, this chapter describes how the absence of a common conceptualization affected the work of the International Law Commission, the International Law Institute, and the International Law Association. Afterwards, the chapter focuses on the dual attribution of conduct to an international organization and to its member states. It contends that dual attribution is extremely important in practice and it reviews the cases in which it was at issue. After providing a set of principles on how to apply the dual attribution, it distinguishes between three sets of circumstances: dual attribution via institutional links, dual attribution via factual links, and exclusion of dual attribution when the conduct is attributable to only the organization or its member states. Finally, it discusses the effects of dual attribution in terms of joint responsibility.

The Law of Treaties

2021 ◽  
pp. 141-158
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Gasbarri
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Controversial Issue ◽  
Member States ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Legal Nature ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

This chapter applies the dual legal nature to the law of treaties. It begins by describing how international organizations were conceptualized in the debates of the International Law Commission and of International Law Institute on the law of treaties. Afterwards it contends that the capacity of an international organization to conclude a treaty is based both on a norm of general international law and on a norm of the internal institutional legal system. This finding is applied to the controversial issue of the position of member states in the treaty concluded by the organization. The dual nature leads to rethinking the role of members within the organizations based on complementarity. It means that member states have an indirect involvement with the treaty concluded only by the organization. For instance, member states’ obligations arise in order to provide the organization with the means to fulfil the obligations of the organization.

The Work of the International Law Commission, 2007–2011: Progress and Prospects

2012 ◽  
Vol 106 (2) ◽  
pp. 322-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald McRae
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Transboundary Aquifers ◽  
Law Commission ◽  
The Way

On November 17, 2011, the UN General Assembly elected the members of the International Law Commission for the next five years. In the course of the quinquennium that was completed in August 2011 with the end of the sixty-third session, the Commission concluded four major topics on its agenda: the law of transboundary aquifers, the responsibility of international organizations, the effect of armed conflicts on treaties, and reservations to treaties. It was by any standard a substantial output. The beginning of a new quinquennium now provides an opportunity to assess what the Commission has achieved, to consider the way it operates, and to reflect on what lies ahead for it.

Rethinking Indirect Responsibility

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-52
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Voulgaris
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Contextual Approach ◽  
Normative Analysis ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
To Come ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
First Time ◽  
Included Article ◽  
Law Commission

In its Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations, the International Law Commission included Article 17 in order to regulate instances in which binding decisions and authorizations were made by international organizations that bound or applied in respect of their member States. Given that courts have struggled in vain to come up with a uniform approach applicable in such situations, one would expect that Article 17 would have been a cause for celebration. Commentators, however, lamented the inclusion of the provision, arguing that it cannot function effectively because it forms part of the problematic Chapter IV that regulates scenarios of indirect responsibility. The article rejects this approach. For the first time, it offers an integrated normative analysis of all Chapter IV provisions, and calls on the reader to rethink indirect responsibility in a way that advances and promotes coherence in the law of international responsibility. The paper adopts a contextual approach, and suggests that this understanding of Article 17 offers courts a twofold opportunity: first, the ability to effectively tackle cases that have troubled them to date; and second, to initiate a change in the way in which States and international organizations interact in the international arena.

scholarly journals Guiding Principles on Shared Responsibility in International Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Nollkaemper ◽  
Jean d’Aspremont ◽  
Christiane Ahlborn ◽  
Berenice Boutin ◽  
Nataša Nedeski ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Joint And Several Liability ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Law Commission

Abstract It is common in international practice that several states and/or international organizations contribute together to the indivisible injury of a third party. Examples thereof are aplenty in relation to climate change and other environmental disasters, joint military activities and cooperative actions aimed at stemming migration. Such situations are hardly captured by the existing rules of the law of international responsibility. In particular, the work of the International Law Commission, which is widely considered to provide authoritative guidance for legal questions of international responsibility, has little to offer. As a result, it is often very difficult, according to the existing rules of the law of international responsibility, to share responsibility and apportion reparation between the states and/or international organizations that contribute together to the indivisible injury of a third party. The Guiding Principles on Shared Responsibility in International Law seek to provide guidance to judges, practitioners and researchers when confronted with legal questions of shared responsibility of states and international organizations for their contribution to an indivisible injury of third parties. The Guiding Principles identify the conditions of shared responsibility (including questions of multiple attribution of conduct), the consequences of shared responsibility (notably, the possibility of joint and several liability) and the modes of implementation of shared responsibility. The Guiding Principles are of an interpretive nature. They build on the existing rules of the law of international responsibility and sometimes offer novel interpretations thereof. They also expand on those existing rules, backed by authoritative practice and scholarship, to address complex questions of shared responsibility.

The Allocation of International Responsibility between International Organizations and Their Member States: A Case of Indirect Responsibility?

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 755-770
Author(s):  
Christiane Ahlborn
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Extensive Discussion ◽  
Member States ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
Insightful Analysis ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

Abstract While the responsibility of international organizations and their member states has been on the agenda of courts and scholars for decades, the adoption of the Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (ARIO) by the International Law Commission in 2011 has given new impetus to the debate. Nikolaos Voulgaris’ Allocating International Responsibility between Member States and International Organizations is one of the few general books on the topic that post-dates the adoption of the ARIO. Despite its broad title, however, the focus of the book is rather narrow: it concentrates on the responsibility of an international organization or a state in connection with the act of a/another state or international organization, which Voulgaris describes as ‘indirect responsibility’. Considering the book’s extensive discussion of the function and nature of international responsibility, this review essay first submits that the book’s actual aim is a rethinking of indirect responsibility. Second, it examines Voulgaris’ reconceptualization of the pertinent provisions on indirect responsibility in terms of what he calls the ‘complicity’ and ‘derivative responsibility’ models. This review essay concludes that the reader who expects detailed guidance on the allocation of responsibility between international organizations and their member states will be left wanting. Instead, the interaction between international organizations and their member states serves as an illustration for the book’s insightful analysis of the under-theorized provisions on international responsibility in connection with the act of another.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 208-210
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Gasbarri
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Member States ◽  
Legal Nature ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
The Law

This chapter summarizes the main findings of the book. The concept of an international organization is defined by looking at the nature of the legal systems they develop. The notion of ‘dual legal nature’ describes how organizations create particular legal systems that derive from international law. This peculiar condition affects the law they produce, which is international and internal at the same time. The effects of the dual legal nature are discussed by analysing international responsibility, the law of treaties, and the validity of organizations’ acts. This conceptualization allows the development of a common legal framework applicable to all international organizations, despite their differences in terms of powers, membership, size, and other descriptive features. In particular, the most valuable consequence of this conceptualization is to rebut a frequent argumentative motif, under which organizations are either perceived as vehicles for member states’ interests or as autonomous entities.

The Use of Analogies in Drafting the Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations An Appraisal of the ‘Copy-Paste Approach’

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiane Ahlborn
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

In view of the adoption and future reception of the Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (ARIO) on second reading, this contribution seeks to offer some reflections on the ‘copy-paste narrative’ that has characterized the process of drafting the ARIO by the International Law Commission (ILC). On the basis of a brief introduction to the concept of analogies in international law, it is explained that the use of analogies is not to be equated with a mechanical exercise of copy-pasting legal rules; rather, it constitutes a method of legal reasoning based on a principled assessment of relevant similarities and differences. By comparing the ARIO with the ILC’s Articles on State Responsibility (ASR), it will be demonstrated that the ARIO actually do not follow the example of the ASR in many key provisions. Interestingly, much of the critique of the ARIO has been directed against these dissimilar provisions, especially when they concern the relations between an international organization and its member States. Since this critique is mainly driven by considerable uncertainty as to the determination of the responsible actor(s), it will be suggested that the ILC should have used closer analogies with the ASR in order to enhance the overall coherence of the law of international responsibility. This is because, as argued in conclusion, the corporate complexity of international organizations and States may necessitate a unified set of Articles on International Responsibility.

Internationally Wrongful Acts in the Domestic Courts: The Contribution of Domestic Courts to the Development of Customary International Law Relating to the Engagement of International Responsibility

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON OLLESON
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Law Commission ◽  
Point Of Reference

AbstractThe rules of customary international law governing when a state or international organization will be held to have committed an internationally wrongful act, thereby engaging its international responsibility, are relatively well settled in international practice and jurisprudence. A key point of reference in this regard is the work of the International Law Commission on State Responsibility and Responsibility of International Organizations. The present paper examines relevant practice of domestic courts from a variety of jurisdictions which have relied upon the ILC's work, and discusses the extent to which domestic courts may make a contribution to the further development of the rules relating to engagement of responsibility. It concludes that, due to the operation of rules of, inter alia, immunity and non-justiciability, the principal instance in which domestic courts may actually apply the rules of international law is where it is the responsibility of the forum state which is in issue.

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