The International Court of Justice: Selected Issues of State Responsibility*

Abstract

Issues of state responsibility have engaged the attention of both the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Issues of state responsibility before the ICJ may be said to have fallen into several broad categories: attribution of conduct to the state, the relationship of state responsibility to the jurisdictional basis for the dispute, the relationship of state responsibility to substantive law, and state responsibility and the designation of appropriate remedies for a breach. On October 10, 2002, in the ICJ’s judgment in the Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v Nigeria) case, a fifth aspect of the law of state responsibility, came very much into focus, namely, the place of the law of responsibility in a case principally concerning territorial title. This chapter also discusses requests for separate findings of state responsibility as a consequence of findings of illegal conduct, claims of state responsibility in territorial disputes, and when a distinct finding on responsibility should be requested.