Responsibility of state for internationally wrongful acts

iiiABSTRACTRESPONSIBILITY OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONALLY WRONGFUL ACTSElif UzunDepartment of Public LawAnadolu University Graduate School of Social Sciences, October 2006Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ayşe Nur TÜTÜNCÜEvery legal system intrinsically includes the concept of responsibility in thesense that violation of a binding obligation involving responsibility. In this respect,international law resembles to the national law. However, the state responsibility ininternational law has not been codified. Most of the rules of state responsibility arecustomary rules of international law and have been derived from the decisions ofinternational judicial organs, arbitral awards and state practices.State responsibility has a broad scope and the responsibility for internationallywrongful acts constitutes only a part of it. The rules of state responsibility indicate thecircumstances in which a state will be attributed legal responsibility for the violation ofan international obligation and the consequences this entails.Every internationally wrongful act of a state entails the internationalresponsibility of that state. Two conditions are required to be able to determine theexistence of an internationally wrongful act of a state. First, the conduct in question hasto be attributed to the state. Second, this conduct must constitute a breach of aninternational legal obligation in force for that state.It is generally accepted that some circumstances precludes the wrongfulness ofthe act in the view of law. Likewise, international law recognizes the consent of thevictim state, countermeasures, force majeure, lawful self-defence, distress and the stateof necessity as such circumstances.Breach of an international obligation causes to a secondary obligation to makereparation for that breach. Reparation can take many forms such as apology, restitutionin kind, monetary compensation or any combination thereof.