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Consent Precluding State Responsibility: A Critical Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2008

Ademola Abass
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Chapter V (Part 1) of the ILC&s1 Articles on State Responsibility2 contains sixcircumstances which, when invoked justify, or excuse,3 the commission of acts that are otherwise unlawful against another State.4 The circumstances attenuate or remove responsibility entirely. These circumstances are namely: consent (Article 20), selfdefence (Article 21), countermeasures (Article 22), force majeure (Article 23), distress (Article 24), and necessity (Article 25). Nonetheless, Article 26 of the ILCASR states that ‘[n]othing in this Chapter precludes the wrongfulness of a State which is not in conformity with anobligation arising under a peremptory norm of general international law.’

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Articles
Information
International & Comparative Law Quarterly , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , January 2004 , pp. 211 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 2004

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References

1 The ILC was established in 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly. See GA Res. 174 (II), of 21 Nov, 1947. For an excellent chronicling of the formation of the ILC, see Watts, A, The International Law Commission, 1949–1998, vols I, II, III (1999), particularly vol I at 1–20;Google ScholarThe Work of the International Law Commission (UN Publication No E.95.V.6) (5th edn, 1996), at 121–41.Google Scholar

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3 Lowe states that by categorizing these circumstances as precluding wrongfulness, the ILC ‘propose to characterize wrongful conduct in respect of which there exists exculpatory circumstances as “not wrongful”.’ Instead he suggested that the Commission could have ‘characterized them as wrongful but excused’. See Lowe, V, ‘Precluding Wrongfulness or Responsibility: A Plea for Excuses’, (1999) 10 (2) EJIL 405.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBut see Rosenstock, R, ‘The ILC and State Responsibility’, (2002) 96(4) AJIL 792, at 794.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 The circumstances also featured in the ILC's Draft Articles on State Responsibility adopted in 1996. See ILC's Report, 1996, GAOR, 51st Sess, Supp 10,125.Google Scholar

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80 Ibid.

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90 Oscar Schachter argued that ‘in the absence of a civil war, recognized governments have a right to receive external military assistance and outside States are free to furnish such aid…[intervention] is allowable at the request of the government of a State’. See Schachter, O, ‘The right of States to Use Armed Force’ (1984) 82 MLR 1620, at 1645.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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94 ILC's Commentary 188.Google Scholar