The ILC's Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts: Completion of the Second Reading James Crawford *, Jacqueline Peel **, Simon Olleson *** Full text available: PDF version **** 1. Introduction At its fifty-third session (2001), the International Law Commission adopted on second reading a complete text of the Articles on Responsibility of States for `Internationally Wrongful Acts, together with accompanying commentaries.1 The Articles on State Responsibility (as they will be called here) were referred to the General Assembly for consideration. The adoption of the text and commentaries of the Articles comes some forty-five years after the Commission first began its consideration of the topic of State responsibility under Special Rapporteur García Amador. The first reading text of the Articles, adopted in 1996 by the Commission,2 was formulated under the leadership successively of Special Rapporteurs Ago (1962-1979), Riphagen (1980-1986) and Arangio-Ruiz (1987-1996). The second reading began in 1998 with the aim of completion by 2001.3 In 1998 and 1999, the Commission undertook a thorough revision of Part One of the draft articles.4 In 2000, the Drafting Committee provisionally adopted a complete text of the substantive draft articles in three further Parts.5 The draft articles of 2000 were not debated in plenary but were included, as a provisional text, in the Commission's report to the General Assembly in order to allow a further opportunity for comment.6 The Drafting Committee's text of 2000 was the subject of substantial discussion in the Sixth Committee7 and of further written comments by a number of governments,8 as well as by a study group of the International Law Association.9 In 2001 the Commission reconsidered the Drafting Committee's text in light of these comments and adopted the final text without a vote.10 * S.C., F.B.A., Whewell Professor of International Law, University of Cambridge; Special Rapporteur on State Responsibility, International Law Commission. ** BSc/LLB (Hon. I), LL.M. (N.Y.U.), Lecturer in Law, Queensland University of Technology. *** B.A. (Hons.)(Cantab.), LL.M. (N.Y.U.), Intern on State Responsibility at the International Law Commission, 2001, funded by N.Y.U. School of Law. The authors wish to thank the Leverhulme Trust for its generous financial support, and Darren Peacock for his assistance with the text. **** The free viewer (Acrobat Reader) for PDF file is available at the Adobe Systems. 1 For the text of the Articles and commentaries see Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-sixth Session, Supplement No. 10 (A/56/10), chap. V. These are reproduced with a critical apparatus in James Crawford, The ILC's Articles on State Responsibility: Introduction, Text and Commentaries (Cambridge, CUP, forthcoming). A list of the numbers and titles of the Articles, together with their equivalents in the provisional text (2000) and the first reading text (1996), appears in the Annex. References to articles provisionally adopted in 2000 are indicated by the use of brackets, e.g. article {49}; first reading article numbers are given square brackets, e.g. article [40]. 2 Yearbook ... 1996, vol. II (Part Two), pp. 58-65. 3 Yearbook ...1997, vol. II (Part Two), para. 161. 4 See generally the symposium in 10 Eur. J. Int'l L. 339 (1999). 5 See A/CN.4/L.600, and for the statement of the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, Mr. Giorgio Gaja, see A/CN.4/SR.2662. For a review of the progress made during the 2000 session see James Crawford, Pierre Bodeau and Jacqueline Peel, The ILC's Draft Articles on State Responsibility: Toward Completion of a Second Reading, 94 Am. J. Int'l L. 660 (2000). 6 Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-fifth Session, Supplement No. 10 (A/55/10), chap. IV, appendix. 7 See the topical summary of the discussion held in the Sixth Committee during the fifty-fourth session of the General Assembly, prepared by the Secretariat (A/CN.4/513, sect. A). 8 See "State responsibility: comments and observations received from Governments" (A/CN.4/515 and Add.1). References to "Comments and observations ..." are to the excerpts from the written comments of Governments under the relevant article. 9 The Study Group's first report was submitted on 8 June 2000: for text see http://www.ila-hq.org. The Study Group consists of Peter Malanczuk (Netherlands, chair and convener), Koorosh Ameli (Islamic Republic of Iran); David Caron (United States), Pierre-Marie Dupuy (France), Malgosia Fitzmaurice (United Kingdom), Vera Gowlland-Debbas (Switzerland), Werner Meng (Germany), Shinya Murase (Japan), Marina Spinedi (Italy), Guido Soares (Brazil), Zhaojie Li (China) and Tiyanjana Maluwa (Malawi). 10 See the Report of the Chairman of the Drafting Committee (P. Tomka), in A/CN.4/SR.2681, 29 May 2001, A/CN.4/SR.2682, 30 May 2001, A/CN.4/SR.2683, 31 May 2001, A/CN.4/SR.2701, 3 August 2001.
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