Encoding the law of State responsibility with courage and resolve: James Crawford and the 2001 Articles on State Responsibility

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

The breadth of James Crawford’s work as an academic and practitioner of international law is astonishing: from boundary delimitation to foundational sources questions to the complexities of annulment in investment arbitration, little seemed beyond his grasp or interest. From the 1990s onwards, State responsibility became a focus of his work, guiding the International Law Commission (ILC) through a swift second reading of the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (Articles). The eventual text, adopted in 2001 and annexed to United Nations General Assembly resolution 56/83, while reflecting a collective ILC effort, bears his imprint. This contribution takes three observations by Crawford as prompts for a discussion of both his role in their crafting and of the Articles’ place in contemporary international law. First, the Articles have ‘encoded the way we think about [State] responsibility’. Second, this encoding exercise marked ‘a step in the direction of profitable generalization’. Finally, the fact that this exercise resulted in a formally non-binding text has permitted ‘the Articles as part of the fabric of general international law to be consolidated and refined’ in the day-to-day interpretation and application of international law. The article concludes with brief remarks on their future status.

Original languageEnglish
JournalCambridge International Law Journal
Volume11
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)6-23
Number of pages18
ISSN2398-9173
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.06.2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author.

    Research areas

  • Articles on State Responsibility, International Law Commission, internationally wrongful act, James Crawford, State responsibility
  • Law

    ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • Law

DOI

Recently viewed

Activities

  1. Interdisziplinarität in kuratorischen Netzwerken
  2. Extending Working Lives in Organizations: The Later Life Workplace Index for Successful Management of an Aging Workforce
  3. Clustering (Spatial) Relationships to unveil small-scale Schooling Markets
  4. ERA-Net CRUE Kick-off Meeting - 2009
  5. Using cardiovascular measures to integrate two theories: motivational intensity theory and mental contrasting
  6. 24th International Conference on System Theory, Control and Computing - ICSTCC 2020
  7. Architecture, a Mathematical Science - Teaching Experimental CAAD: Proportions and Harmonies
  8. 5th Critical Transitions in Complex Systems Workshop - CRITICS 2018
  9. Implementing internet-based interventions for symptoms of depression and stress - results from a german routine care project
  10. Inside the Writers’ Room: Theorizing Relationality in Creative Collaboration
  11. ECPR Joint Sessions, Workshop: ‚Local political leadership in a changing context’ - 2006
  12. Phase-mixture Modeling of Nanocrystalline Materials Including Gradient Effects of Higher Order
  13. HyperKult XVIII - Computer als Medium: The Cloud
  14. Absatztheorie
  15. ECPR Winter School in Methods and Techniques
  16. Plenary Speaker at the 2021 8th International Conference on Computing and Communication Technologies (WCCCT 2021) with a talk entitled: „A Real Application of Fuzzy Based Control Strategy for a Nonholonomic Car-Like Robot„, January 23-25, Dalian, China.
  17. Public Lecture Series "Global Politics" 2015
  18. Mercator School of Management
  19. Spectral kinetic simulation of the Planar Multipole-Resonance-Probe
  20. Conference on Computational Design Culture - MECS 2015
  21. What impact does a field experience have on pre-service teachers’ adaptive peer feedback expertise?
  22. University of Basel
  23. Assessment of Age-correlated Occupational Strain as a Basis for an Age-Adequate Work-Sequence Organization