Concluding Remarks: ARSIWA - A Reference Text Partially Victim of Its Own Success?

Abstract

After 40 years of work, the International Law Commission succeeded, 20 years ago, in completing its work of codifying the international law of State responsibility.2 This happy conclusion was reached, in large part, thanks to the intellectual mastery and diligent leadership of the ILC’s special rapporteur on this subject, Professor (later Judge) James Crawford to whom we would like to pay special tribute with this issue. The latter was invited, 10 years later, to make a first assessment in the ICSID Review of the way in which tribunals had so far used this codification text in order to resolve disputes between parties for whose relations it was not originally designed!3 Indeed, the draft codification of the law of responsibility is aimed at relations between two or more States, each with equal sovereignty. Intended to be applied solely...