CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ STATE SUCCESSION TO INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY A CRITICAL ANALYSIS… cannot be the legal basis of the succession to obligations arising from the internationally wrongful acts of the predecessor State because of their unliquidated nature. For instance, O’Connell according to whom ‘the concept of acquired rights is one of the rare solid principles governing the succession of States’, 87 indicates in his leading work on State succession that the obligation to repair arising from the internationally wrongful acts of the predecessor State ‘does not meet his test of being properly vested in a natural or juristic person and of an assessable monetary value’. 88 B. Unjust Enrichment The second concept on which the modern school bases its succession theory is the ‘principle of unjust enrichment’. This concept which finds its origins in Roman law means the enrichment from someone else’s patrimony or labor without any valid legal ground and imposes on the enriched person the obligation of restitution for the enrichment. 89 Legal orders which adopt the principle of unjust enrichment require, in general, the coexistence of the following elements in order that the obligation of restitution occurs: ‘(a) that there be an enrichment of the defendant; (b) that this enrichment be the direct consequence of a patrimonial injury suffered by the plaintiff. That is, that the same causative act creates simultaneously the enrichment and the detriment; (c) that the enrichment of the defendant be unjust; (d) That the injured person has in his favour no contractual right which he could exercise to compensate him for the damage’. 90 Writers belonging to the modern school of State succession argue that the principle of unjust enrichment, which is more or less regulated in this perspective in different municipal laws, constitutes a general principal of law in the sense of the Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. 91 This assessment is first based on international arbitral awards. The Emeric Koranyi award of 1929 and the Lighthouses Arbitration decision of 1956, although not directly related to the issue of State succession to international responsibility, are cited as referring to the principle Jennings and Arthur Watts, Oppenheim’s International Law , Vol. I (Longman 1996), 218; S Agrawala, ‘Law of Nations as Interpreted and Applied by Indian Courts and Legislature’ (1962) 2 Indian J.I.L. 431, 442; Louis Henkin and others, International Law, Cases and Materials , (3 rd edn West Group 1993), 293; Jacques Barde, La notion de droit acquis en droit international public (Publications Universitaires de Paris 1981), 183-84; John O’Brien, International Law (Taylor & Francis 2001), 604. 87 O’Connell (n 11) 267. 88 Daniel P O’Connell, The Law of State Succession (Cambridge University Press 1956) 201. See Volkovitsch (n 46) 2204-5. 89 Wolfgang Friedmann, The Changing Structure of International Law (Stevens & Sons 1964), 206; Ernst M Von Caemmerer, ‘Problèmes fondamentaux de l’enrichissement sans cause’ (1966) 18 Revue internationale de droit comparé 573, 575; George Aldrich, The Jurisprudence of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal (Clarendon Press 1996), 397; Daniel P O’Connell, ‘Unjust Enrichment’ (1956) 5 Am. J. Comp. L. 2. 90 Dickson Car Wheel Company (USA v. United Mexican States) [1931] U.S.-Mexico General Claims Commission, 4 RIAA 669, p. 676; Charlie Webb, ‘What is Unjust Enrichment?’ (2009) 29 Oxf. J. Leg. Stud. 215, 216. 91 Volkovitsch (n 46) 2210; O’Connell (n 11) 34; Georg Schwarzenberger, International Law as Applied by International Courts and Tribunals , Vol. I (Steven & Sons 1957), 578-79; Charles M Fombad, ‘The principle of unjust enrichment in international law’ (1997) 30 Comp. Int. Law J. South. Afr. 120, 123; Georges Ripert, ‘Les règles du droit civil applicables aux rapports internationaux (Contribution à l’étude des principes généraux du droit visés au statut de la Cour permanente de justice internationale)’ (1933) 44 RCADI 565, 631-32; Friedmann (n 89) 206-10; Paul Guggenheim, Traité de droit international public , Tome I (Librairie de l’Université, Georg & Cie S. A 1953), 155; Dumberry (n 47) 263-79; Garcia-Amador and others (n 68) 40.

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