25. The conditions for international responsibility

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.

24. Nationality of corporations and assets

The assignment of persons (including corporations) and property to states, in particular for the purposes of diplomatic protection, is normally approached through the concept of nationality, yet the problem must be solved in a variety of contexts, including jurisdiction. This chapter reviews international law governing the nationality of corporations, nationality of ships, nationality of aircraft, nationality of space objects, and state property in general.

17. Diplomatic and consular relations

The rules of international law governing diplomatic relations are the product of long-established state practice reflected in treaties, national legislation, and judicial decisions, as codified in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. This chapter discusses the general legal aspects of diplomatic relations; staff, premises, and facilities of missions; inviolability of missions; diplomatic agents; consular relations; special missions; and crimes against internationally protected persons.

12. Maritime delimitation and associated questions

This chapter discusses international law governing territorial sea delimitation, continental shelf delimitation (including beyond 200 nm), exclusive economic zone delimitation, and the effect of islands upon delimitation.

33. Use or threat of force by states

This chapter discusses international law governing the use or threat of force by states. The UN Security Council has primary responsibility for enforcement action to deal with breaches of the peace, threats to the peace, or acts of aggression. Individual member states have the right of individual or collective self-defence, but only ‘until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security’. However, the practice has evolved of authorizing peacekeeping operations that are contingent upon the consent of the state whose territory is the site of the operations.

27. Multilateral public order and issues of responsibility

International law has remained imprecise with respect to the scope and consequences of serious, systemic illegality, but there have been developments that have made collective action under law possible. The chapter reviews the objective consequences of illegal acts, covering peremptory norms (ius cogens), the obligation not to recognize a situation as lawful, and the obligation of putting an end to an unlawful situation.

21. Jurisdictional competence

Jurisdiction refers to a state’s competence under international law to regulate the conduct of natural and juridical persons. The notion of regulation includes the activity of all branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. This chapter discusses prescriptive jurisdiction over crimes, civil prescriptive jurisdiction, the separateness of the grounds of jurisdiction, and enforcement jurisdiction.

19. Succession to rights and duties

The significant number of recent state successions has resulted in an attempted re-engagement with the law of state succession in a different historical and political context, based on the accumulation of state practice over the past two decades. This chapter discusses the forms of territorial change, state succession and municipal legal relations, succession to treaties, succession to responsibility, and membership of international organizations.

18. Unilateral acts, acquiescence, and estoppel

This chapter discusses the concepts of unilateral acts, acquiescence, and estoppel, and the relation between the three. All three are rooted in the principle of good faith, but unilateral acts are in their essence statements or representations intended to be binding and publicly manifested as such, whereas acquiescence and estoppel are more general categories, consisting of statements or representations not intended as binding nor amounting to a promise, whose binding force depends on the circumstances.

14. Common spaces and cooperation in the use of natural resources

This chapter discusses some legal issues that can arise in connection with the use of shared resources; the generation and use of energy and other uses of transboundary water resources; and other forms of transboundary co-operation, as well as issues specific to the polar regions and outer space.