ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the International Law Commission’s (‘ILC’) topic of International Liability for Injurious Consequences Arising Out of Acts Not Prohibited by International Law (the ‘topic’). Study of the reports of the special rapporteurs and of the ILC’s debates reveals that the topic is, in part, an attempt to remedy some of the problems associated with state responsibility for wrongful acts:1
[T]he rules of state responsibility for wrongful acts or omissions . . . form the backbone of any legal system. Nevertheless, as international life grows more complex and is more elaborately organised, attempts to interpret international law solely in terms of breaches of imprecise or disputed rules, engaging State responsibility for a wrongful act or omission, are bound to be inadequate. This is the more true because adjudication, or any other principled determination of a legal dispute, is in this area of international law a rarity.
