The international responsibilities and accountability of a state

Cassese defines state responsibility as designating 'the legal consequences of the internationally wrongful act of a State.' The primary rules of state responsibility are those treaty and customary rules that bind all states. The secondary rules of state responsibility determine the obligations of the wrongdoer and the rights and powers of any states or the international community of states affected by the breach of the international obligation.

Brownlie in his influential study on State responsibility delineated causes of action involving the responsibility of States that had been invoked in practice. Although he examined several heads of relief in pleadings he found only a few that directly related to State responsibility. His final list follows:

  1. State responsibility arising from a breach of a treaty obligation
  2. State responsibility arising otherwise from a breach of duty set by general international law (customary international law)
  3. Claims of sovereignty or title
  4. Action for a declaration of the validity of a State measure in general international law
  5. Violation of the sovereignty of a State by specified acts
  6. Infringement of the freedom of the high seas or outer space
  7. The unreasonable exercise of a power causing loss or damage (abuse of rights)
  8. Usurpation of jurisdiction
  9. Breach of an international standard concerning the treatment of aliens (denial of justice)
  10. Breach of human rights standards, in particular the forms of unlawful discrimination
  11. Unlawful confiscation or expropriation of property
  12. Unlawful seizure of vessels

There are very few treaty rules in existence that specifically deal with state responsibility but a prominent one is Article 3 of the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907, on the Laws and Customs of War on Land which is still applicable in times of occupation:

A belligerent party which violated the provisions of the said Regulations, shall if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces.

DISCUSSION PAPER 2: DRONE ATTACKS, INTERNATIONAL LAW, AND THE RECORDING OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES OF ARMED CONFLICT, pp. 21-22