scholarly journals covid-19 Claims and the Law of International Responsibility

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-330
Author(s):  
Martins Paparinskis

Abstract This paper considers the role that the law of international responsibility, both State responsibility and responsibility of international organizations, plays in claims and disputes about covid-19. It proceeds by examining in turn the rubrics of the internationally wrongful act, content of responsibility, and implementation of responsibility. On most points, blackletter law is perfectly capable of answering the questions raised by claims related to covid-19. But evolutionary potential inherent in the normal international legal process should also be recognised, whether it manifests itself by further strengthening current rules, elaborating vague rules by application, filling gaps in current law by generating new practice or even, exceptionally, revisiting rules currently in force.

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean d’Aspremont

It is against the backdrop of the conceptual impairment inherited from the Articles on State Responsibility (hereafter ASR) that this note, rather than zeroing in on what could have been better devised at the micro-level of the Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (hereafter ARIO), adopts a holistic view on the approaches to the law of international responsibility. In so doing, the ARIO are not approached in isolation but together with the ASR. This paper argues that, envisaged together with the ASR, the ARIO magnify the structural straits of the law of international responsibility. It more particularly argues that the ARIO reveal that the minor and almost invisible defects at the level of the ASR have enlarged on the occasion of their transposition to the responsibility of international organizations, unveiling the conceptual fissures of the whole law of international responsibility (Section 1). It then formulates a few epistemological considerations on how a normative instrument that so openly lays bare the limits of the current law of international responsibility could nonetheless be usefully received by our professional community (Section 2).


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataša Nedeski ◽  
André Nollkaemper

This article offers some reflections on the way in which the ILC Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (ARIO) have addressed the responsibility of international organizations for conduct of member States implementing their normative acts. The ILC has chosen to deal with this issue through the concept of responsibility ‘in connection with’ acts of States, which it had already included in its Articles on State Responsibility (ASR), and more in particular through article 17 on ‘circumvention’. Focusing primarily on this provision, we argue that the attempt to address this particular type of responsibility forced the ILC to relax the conceptual straightjackets it had opted for in the ASR, thereby exposing certain ambiguities in the foundations of the law of international responsibility.


Author(s):  
James Crawford

This chapter discusses the basis and character of state responsibility, attribution to the state, breach of an international obligation, and circumstances precluding wrongfulness. This chapter focuses on the articulation of the law of responsibility through the ILC’s Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts.


2021 ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Ilias Bantekas ◽  
Efthymios Papastavridis

The law of international responsibility sets out the legal consequences arising from a breach by a State of its international obligations. It should be distinguished from ‘primary rules’ of international law, which lay down international obligations. International responsibility arises when a certain act or omission is wrongful, ie it is attributed to a State and it amounts to a violation of its ‘primary’ obligations. The international responsibility may be excused under certain strict circumstances, such as consent or necessity. Otherwise, the responsible State should cease the wrongful conduct and, in case of damage, it should provide reparation to the injured State, in the form of restitution, compensation, and satisfaction.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Gasbarri

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.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramses A. Wessel ◽  
Ige F. Dekker

In academic debates on the responsibility of international organizations and their member States the different identities of States play a crucial role. However, apart from the difficulty to clearly separate ‘State’ and ‘member State’ identities, it is even more complex to distinguish between the different roles ‘member States’ may have in the framework of international organizations. As a general introduction to this special forum, this essay aims to clarify the different identities and roles States may have in relation to international organizations, especially in the context of the responsibility of international organizations. As the subsequent contributions reveal, the law on the international responsibility of international organizations takes account of the possible responsibility of their members. By mapping the different identities States may have in different settings, this contribution argues that such differentiations may be crucial for the further development of adequate international rules on the responsibility of international organizations and their members.


Author(s):  
Ilias Bantekas ◽  
Efthymios Papastavridis

The law of international responsibility sets out the legal consequences arising from a breach by a State of its international obligations. It should be distinguished from ‘primary rules’ of international law, which lay down international obligations. International responsibility arises when a certain act or omission is wrongful, i.e. it is attributed to a State and it amounts to a violation of its ‘primary’ obligations. The international responsibility may be excused under certain strict circumstances, like consent or necessity. Otherwise, the responsible State should cease the wrongful conduct and in case of damage, it should provide reparation to the injured State, in the form of restitution, compensation, and satisfaction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Nollkaemper ◽  
Jean d’Aspremont ◽  
Christiane Ahlborn ◽  
Berenice Boutin ◽  
Nataša Nedeski ◽  
...  

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.


Author(s):  
Lorenzo Gasbarri

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.


Author(s):  
James Crawford ◽  
Simon Olleson

This chapter begins with an overview of the different forms of responsibility/liability in international law, and then focuses on the general character of State responsibility. The law of State responsibility deals with three general questions: (1) has there been a breach by a State of an international obligation; (2) what are the consequences of the breach in terms of cessation and reparation; and (3) who may seek reparation or otherwise respond to the breach as such, and in what ways? As to the first question, the chapter discusses the constituent elements of attribution and breach, as well as the possible justifications or excuses that may preclude responsibility. The second question concerns the various secondary obligations that arise upon the commission of an internationally wrongful act by a State, and in particular the forms of reparation. The third question concerns issues of invocation of responsibility, including the taking of countermeasures.


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