The Law of International Responsibility

Abstract

1. Part of the Oxford Commentaries on International Law series, The Law of International Responsibility, edited by James Crawford, Alain Pellet and Simon Olleson, as well as Kate Parlett (assistant editor), is an excellent addition to the growing literature on the topic of international responsibility. 2. Running as long as 1296 pages plus a thick set of preliminaries, this book contains 86 chapters commenting on various aspects of international responsibility, “which may arise in a multifaceted international legal system” (p. v). While critiquing the International Law Commission (ILC) Articles on State Responsibility (2001),1 as well as others such as the ILC Articles on Diplomatic Protection (2006) and its Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organization (adopted on first reading in 2009), the 86 chapters are not organized as article-by-article commentaries but by subject matter and conceptual issues. 3. The book is divided into five parts: Part I, Introduction—Responsibility and International Law; Part II, International Responsibility—Development and Relation with Other Laws; Part III, The Sources of International Responsibility; Part IV, The Content of International Responsibility; and Part V, The Implementation of International Responsibility. The first two parts deal with some conceptual, general as well as systemic issues. The last three parts correspond to the first three parts of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility, respectively.