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THE ILC ARTICLES ON STATE RESPONSIBILITY: A REFLECTION YEARS LATER
the case in point, application of the obligation is set aside, and hence the obligation is
not breached. The circumstance precluding wrongfulness is constituted by the prior
conduct of the subject for which the obligation is in force.
The above mentioned characterization “as a measure legitimate under
international law” [See A/CN.4/515 (19 March 2001), section “Final form of the
draft articles”, p. 19].
11
has been a typical feature of reprisals in the past, i.e., in the
historical period when the using of forcible measures was allowed as freedom of
action
12
and this instrument was treated rather as a form of punishment for wrongful
conduct. Consequently, it was a case of the possibility or faculty of a particular kind
of action.
13
Of course, with the risk that this action can in turn provoke a further
unilateral reaction from that State which has committed the internationally wrongful
act, namely counter-reprisals followed by counter-counter-reprisals, and so on. We
have to keep in mind that this legal institution favours powerful States which, in
most instances, were the only ones having the means to avail themselves of the use of
countermeasures to protect their interests. Indeed the potentially negative aspects of
countermeasures are such that the desirability is sometimes questioned of providing
any legal regime of countermeasures within the framework of State responsibility
pointing, in particular, to potentially unjust results when applied between States
of unequal strength or means. So, for example, the Chinese member of the ILC,
Mr.
Jiuyong Shi
: „Countermeasures were controversial; rather than reflecting generally
recognized rules of international law, they were simply power relationships in disguise.
Countermeasures were not suitable for codification or progressive development of the
law. (…) [T]hey did not fall within the scope of the topic of State responsibility”.
14
Albeit the ILC avoided, in the last (second) version of the Draft Articles on State
Responsibility, indicating the legitimacy of countermeasures, decisive and juridically
11
As indicated above, this is due to the wording of Article 30 of the first reading. The descriptive
definitíon of the second (final) reading is rather different.
Article 22. Countermeasures in respect
of an internationally wrongful act
The wrongfulness of an act of a State not in conformity with an
international obligation towards another State is precluded if and
to the extent that the act constitutes
a (non-forcible) countermeasure taken against
the latter State in accordance with Chapter II of Part
Three. (i.e. Articles 49 to 54).
12
Cf. Funck-Brentano, Th., Sorel, A
. Précis du Droit des Gens
. Paris, 1894, 2
e
éd., p. 229: „Lorsqu’un Etat
lésé (…) n’a pu obtenir la réparation qu’il jugeait convenable, il n’a d’autre ressource que l’emploi de
la force: il déclare la guerre, ou (…) il fait un acte de guerre isolé (…), c’est ce qu’on appelle exercer les
représailles. Les représailles sont un acte de guerre isolé, mais elles sont un acte de guerre; (…) elles sont
un fait et non l’exercice d’un droit.”
13
See Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its thirty-first session, 1979, A/34/10,
p. 115, par. 4: “(…) a State injured by an internationally wrongful act committed to its detriment
(may use) the possibility (
sic
) of adopting against the State guilty of that act a (counter)measure”
[Le texte français, p. 128, § 4: «(…) l’État lésé par un fait internationalement illicite commis à son
détriment (jouit de) la faculté (
sic
) d’avoir recours, à une (contre)mesure (…)»]. Cf. Spinedi, M
.
Les
crimes internationaux de l’Etat dans les travaux de codification de la responsabilité des Etats entrepris par
les Nations Unies
, Institut Universitaire Européen, San Domenico di Fiesole, 1984 (Working Paper
No. 88), p. 165-6, note 272: «A la ‘faculté’ ne correspond aucune obligation juridique.»
14
In YILC, 1992, Vol. I, p. 133, par. 73.