State responsibility in the light of recent occurrences in the international community

Abstract

The subject of this thesis is State responsibility in the light of recent occurrences in the international community. The principles governing the doctrine of international responsibility are revisited and applied to the situations reviewed in this thesis. Three recent occurrences are made use of to illustrate the problems and developments in this area of public international law. These are the construction of a security barrier or wall by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; the detention by the US of suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the abuse of prisoners at the confinement facility of Abu Ghraib, near Baghdad. With reference to each of these occurrences, the question of the applicable law and the violations thereof, the issue of circumstances such as self-defence which may preclude the wrongfulness of an act in certain tightly circumscribed instances and the legal consequences of breaches of international obligations, are discussed. The role of non-State actors is also central to this thesis particularly vis-a-vis the phenomena of terrorism and torture. Reference is also made to the International Law Commission's Draft Articles on State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts which were adopted on their Second Reading in 2001. Most importantly, the debate as to whether these should be adopted in the form of an international convention is dealt with in the concluding Chapter.