ABSTRACT
When a foreign national under arrest is not advised about consular access but is prosecuted for a crime, the question arises whether that failure has any significance for the prosecution. This issue raises questions of international law and of the law of the receiving state. A state that violates an international obligation must, in general, make good the loss. If it is physically possible to do so, the state must provide a remedy in kind, that is, it must restore the situation to that which preceded the violation (status quo ante). This obligation is found in a branch of international law called “state responsibility,” which provides norms on the consequences of breach of international obligations. The basic postulates of that branch of law have been written into a document prepared by the ILC, under the title Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (Document 2).
