ABSTRACT

In 1975, the Commission decided on a three part structure. Part I would concern the fundamentals of state responsibility. Part II would comprise the content and degrees of state responsibility while Part III would be devoted to questions of implementation and the settlement of disputes. In the period 1969 until 1980, the Special Rapporteur had produced eight reports and the International Law Commission had provisionally approved 35 draft articles. After 1980, work commenced on Part II and later on Part III; by 1996 60 draft articles had been produced. In 1996, the International Law Commission

provisionally adopted its Draft Articles but these were to be reconsidered when governments had a opportunity to comment on them. Since that date a considerable number of comments have been made; in August 2000, the International Law Commission gave a second reading to revised draft articles on state responsibility.6 The general view was that these draft articles would not be the basis for a convention but they might, in the future, be commended by states in the form of a General Assembly Resolution. In any event much of Part I of the Draft Articles restates accepted principles of customary international law.7