The Responsibility Of States For International Crimes

This book focuses on the concept of state responsibility for international crimes, which gained support following the First World War, but was pushed into the background by the development of the principle of individual criminal responsibility under international law after the Second World War. Jorgensen considers the history and merits of a concept that, it is argued, is currently on the threshold between lex ferenda and lex lata.

State Responsibility for the Support of Armed Groups in the Commission of International Crimes makes a case for the liberalisation of the tests of attribution of conduct of individuals to states under the rules of state responsibility in international law.

This book explores consequences arising in the field of State responsibility in relation to those arising for the individual in international criminal law, a relationship that broadly defines duality of responsibility in international law.

This book offers a unique comparison between state and individual responsibility for international crimes and examines the theories that can explain the relationship between these two regimes. The study provides a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the relevant international practice from the standpoint of both international criminal law, and in particular the case law of international criminal tribunals, and state responsibility. The author shows the various connections and issues arising from the parallel establishment of state and individual responsibility for the commission of the same international crimes. These connections indicate a growing need to better co-ordinate these regimes of international responsibility. The author maintains that a general conception, according to which state and individual responsibility are two separate sets of secondary rules attached to the breach of the same primary norms, can help to solve the various issues relating to this dual responsibility. This conception of the complementarity between state and individual responsibility justifies co-ordination and consistent application of these two different regimes, each of which aims to foster compliance with the most important obligations owed to the international community as a whole.

State Responsibility for the Support of Armed Groups in the Commission of International Crimes makes a case for the liberalisation of the tests of attribution of conduct of individuals to states under the rules of state responsibility in international law.

This book will consider a rapidly emerging guiding general principle in international relations and, arguably, in international law: the Responsibility to Protect. This principle is a solution proposed to a key preoccupation in both international relations and international law scholarship: how the international community is to respond to mass atrocities within sovereign States. There are three facets to this responsibility; the responsibility to prevent; the responsibility to react, and the responsibility to rebuild. This doctrine will be analysed in light of the parallel development of customary and treaty international legal obligations imposing responsibilities on sovereign states to the international community in key international law fields such as international human rights law, international criminal law and international environmental law. These new developments demand academic study and this book fills this lacuna by rigorously considering all of these developments as part of a trend towards assumption of international responsibility. This must include the responsibility on the part of all states to respond to threats of genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansings and large-scale war crimes. The discussion surrounding aggravated state responsibility is also explored, with the author concluding that this emerging norm within international law is closely related to the responsibility to protect in its imposition of an international responsibility to act in response to an international wrong. This book will be of great interest to scholars on international law, the law of armed conflict, security studies and IR in general.

Responsibility to Protect: Research, bibliography, background. Supplementary volume to the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty