1 - The Responsibilities of States in International Law

Summary

In the first chapter, I introduce the concept of state responsibility, the set of norms that regulate how states are permitted to enforce their rights under international law. I describe it as an exceptional doctrine that is easy to oversimplify. I present my thesis on the recent origins of state responsibility, which was “born” sometime between 1870 and 1930. I discuss the problems with state responsibility that are unique to international law and how lawyers have coped with this differently depending on their standpoints. Accordingly, I structure the book to reflect three such perspectives: (1) American practitioners; (2) German philosophers; and (3) institutional publicists. Despite the UN’s successful codification of state responsibility in 2001, the book demonstrates the continuing importance of uncodified doctrines of state responsibility. Taken together, this expanded history highlights the complexity of state responsibility as well as the political contexts from which it emerged.