Symposium : Assessing the Work of the International Law Commission on State Responsibility

• Gattini, Andrea

Abstract

In Article 41 of its Draft Articles on State Responsibility, the International Law Commission gave expression to community interests in relation to serious breaches of peremptory norms, without giving in to the pitfalls of an over‐progressive development of the subject. However, when it came to the rules on invocation of responsibility, the ILC fell back into a stale, bilateralistic response. This imbalance, more than being a symptom of schizophrenia or a sign of disingenuousness, is probably the undesired result of a dichotomy in the ILC Draft between ‘serious breaches of peremptory norms’ and ‘violations of obligations owed to the international community as a whole’. Yet, overall, the ILC's choices accurately reflect the current transitional state of international law.