State Responsibility - History

History

Traditionally, the term "state responsibility" referred only to state responsibility for injuries to aliens. It included not only "secondary" issues such as attribution and remedies, but also the primary rights and duties of states, for example the asserted international standard of treatment and the right of diplomatic protection. Early efforts by the League of Nations and private bodies to codify the rules of "state responsibility" reflected the traditional focus on responsibility for injuries to aliens. The League's 1930 Codification Conference in The Hague was able to reach an agreement only on "secondary" issues such as imputation, not on substantive rules regarding the treatment of aliens and their property.

Attempts to codify and develop the rules of state responsibility have continued throughout the life of the United Nations. It took nearly 45 years, more than thirty reports, and extensive work by five Special Rapporteurs in order for the International Law Commission to reach agreement on the final text of the Draft Articles as a whole, with commentaries. At the same time, the customary international law of state responsibility concerning matters such as detention and physical ill-treatment of aliens and their right to a fair trial has been rendered less important than formerly by the development of international human rights law, which applies to all individuals, whether aliens or nationals. The concept of a general regime of legal responsibility, which the rules of state responsibility have taken on, is an inception of the civil law system and is largely foreign to the common law tradition.