CYIL vol. 8 (2017)

KAROLINA WIERCZYŃSKA CYIL 8 ȍ2017Ȏ Article III of the Convention, the international responsibility of that State is incurred”. 2 It was also confirmed in the works of the International Law Commission (ILC), which in the Commentary on Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (“Draft Articles”) 3 found: “[W]here crimes against international law are committed by State officials, it will often be the case that the state itself is responsible for the acts in question or for failure to prevent or punish them. In certain cases, in particular aggression, the State will by definition be involved. Even so, the question of individual responsibility is in principle distinct from the question of State responsibility. The state is not exempted from its own responsibility for internationally wrongful conduct by the prosecution and punishment of the state officials who carried it out.” 4 Questions of relations of those two regimes, although several dozen monographs and articles refer to the issue, 5 still attract scholars anew due to the fact that almost every day public opinion is informed about new issues which can give a rise to either the responsibility of state or the individual in international law or both. In this contribution the question of elements of those two regimes will be developed with a special attention to the relations between them, specifically when it comes to international justice, targeted killings and the technology of drone warfare. The considerations will not, however, be limited only to states and individuals, but attention will be paid also to non- state actors, specifically to some specific subjects such as terrorist groups and their status in international law and their responsibility for committed crimes. 6 The intention of this article is not an attempt to provide an exhaustive and definitive analysis of responsibility issues and rules of the attribution of the responsibility to the responsible subjects but to provoke more detailed analysis and discussion based on the critical issues identified and presented in this article. The current evolution from “state v. state wars” towards asymmetric confrontations with non-state actors is being continued. This means that referring solely to responsibility of the state and responsibility of the individual – one cannot express the whole blurred perspective of today’s international relations. Additionally some problematic questions relating to international responsibility for committing a crime might be also formulated when we consider the scope of responsibility referring to the actions of unmanned military systems and the implications connected with using drones or unmanned robots. The main goal of the present contribution is to examine whether the rules of international responsibility refer 2 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Judgment, ICJ Reports 2007, p. 43, par. 179. 3 Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 2001, vol. II, Part Two. 4 ILC Commentary on the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, ILC Report A/56/10, 2001, Commentary on Article 58, online at: http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/ commentaries/9_6_2001.pdf, para. 3. 5 See for example: GROS ESPIELL, H., International Responsibility of the State and Individual Criminal Responsibility in the International Protection of Human Rights, in RAGAZZI, M. (ed.), International Responsibility Today: Essays in Memory of Oscar Schachter, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2005; BONAFE, B., The Relationship Between State and Individual Responsibility for International Crimes , MartinusNijhoff Publishers 2009, NOLLKAEMPER, A., Concurrence between Individual Responsibility and State Responsibility in International Law, 2003 (52) The International and Comparative Law Quarterly , p. 627. 6 In this contribution I am leaving aside other non-state actors such as international organizations.

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