Introduction

It is one of the more settled principles of international law, as authoritatively formulated by the Permanent Court of International Justice in the classic Chorzow Factory case, that a violation of international law entails responsibility and the obligation to make reparation in one form or another. When it concerns the activities of states, the basic rule is, all sorts of difficulties notwithstanding, relatively straightforward: states are responsible for internationally wrongful acts that can be attributed to them.

With international organizations, however, the question is whether the organization can be held responsible for internationally wrongful acts and, if so, whose acts qualify and upon whom does responsibility eventually come to rest. While states can by and large be treated, for purposes of international law, as unitary actors, the same is not self-evident when it comes to international organizations, which are, after all, the creations of states. Here, once again, the layered nature of international organizations becomes visible: behind the ‘organizational veil’ the contours of the organization's member-states can be discerned.

The topic of the responsibility of international organizations had been given scant attention until the mid-1980s, and the few studies that had appeared before then initially found it difficult to come to terms with international organizations to begin with. Thus, Clyde Eagleton, writing in the 1950s, hardly considered the possibility that international organizations might themselves incur responsibility under international law.