The responsibility of states for internationally wrongful acts committed within the framework of international organizations

• Main Author: Begemann, Anna J.
• Other Authors: Sarooshi, Dan
• Published: University of Oxford 2016
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.729939

This thesis investigates the often-voiced concern that the expanding activities of international organizations lead to an 'accountability gap' in the sense that if potentially harmful activities are carried out through an international organization, neither the organization nor its member States can effectively be held to account. Many international organizations are only beginning to establish procedural remedies through which the lawfulness of their activities can be reviewed. In the absence of a direct remedy against the organization, third parties often try to hold the member States responsible in relation to the organization's activities. This thesis investigates under what circumstances member States can be held responsible for wrongful conduct taken within the framework of an international organization. It deals comprehensively with the attribution of conduct in multilateral contexts, with complicity as a ground of member State responsibility, with reparation for injuries committed by multiple responsible parties and with the judicial enforcement of member State responsibility. In doing so, it demonstrates how with the transposition of the rules on international responsibility to the context of international organizations, certain rules of State responsibility, well-established in an exclusively inter-State context, have been opened up to fundamental questions. The separate legal personality of international organizations can in fact be seen as creating an 'institutional veil' which makes it more difficult to 'see through' and hold States responsible for their conduct qua members. This thesis argues that the possibility of holding member States responsible for unlawful conduct taken within the framework of international organizations not only counters the risk that States could use them as vehicles to carry out unlawful acts, but that it also serves as an incentive for member States to create better procedural remedies against their international organizations.