5 - State Responsibility and Liability

Summary

This chapter is concerned with Germany’s stand on State responsibility and liability. It is found that Germany mistakenly attributed acts by the Houthi rebels to the State of Yemen and mistakenly assumed that the Houthi rebels are bound by Yemen’s international human rights obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Further, Germany’s position that Russia is responsible for the use of a chemical weapon in the poisoning of Alexei Nawalny will be addressed. It will be argued that Germany should have cooperated directly with Russia rather than only calling the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Concerning the Federal Parliament’s Scientific Research Services’ assessment on claims against China for damages incurred due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it will be argued that the only conclusion to be drawn from the report is that legal actions against China must be doomed to failure. Finally, the question will be raised whether Malta apologising for a Maltese ambassador who compared the German Chancellor to Hitler forms a rare example of a formal State apology.