CYIL Vol. 4, 2013

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.