The Responsibility of States for International Crimes

This book focuses on the concept of state responsibility for international crimes which gained support following the First World War, but was pushed into the background by the development of the principle of individual criminal responsibility under international law after the Second World War. The concept became the topic of debate and controversy upon its inclusion in Part I of the United Nations International Law Commission's Draft Articles on State Responsibility adopted on first reading in 1980. The book considers the history and merits of a concept which, it is argued, is currently on the threshold between lex ferenda and lex lata and has a place and an existence in international law independent from the Draft Articles on State Responsibility.