Introduction

Abstract

The Introduction describes the role of international attribution rules and principles in connection with the meaning of ‘State’ under international law. It addresses how this study on attribution is innovative and helpful in relation to various issues. As to public international law, it deals with attribution of the acts or omissions of ‘independent’ State organs exercising functions of a regulatory or administrative nature (such as central banks and independent authorities), the definition of ‘governmental authority’ for the purposes of attribution of conduct of parastatal entities, and the determination of the thresholds of State ‘control’ either on de facto organs, on one side, or on ‘private’ individuals, on the other side. As to international investment law and arbitration, it is notably relevant to clarify the operation of the dialectics between lex generalis (customary international law) and lex specialis (international investment treaties) in relation to attribution issues. The Introduction also clarifies that the analysis that is found in this book is based on the practice of early arbitrations, the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Iran–US Claims Tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), investor–State arbitration, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system. This means that the practice of other international courts and tribunals that is relied on (as to the attribution of conduct to a State) by the International Law Commission (ILC) in its Commentaries to Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA) is not dealt with in this book.