FROM THE SECTORAL ANGLE TO THE GENERAL RULES OR HOW THE CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES CAUSED BY SPACE OBJECTS INFLUENCED THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF STATE RESPONSIBILITY AND LIABILITY?

Abstract

This article discusses the impact the 1972 Liability Convention exerted upon the further discussion on state responsibility and liability rules within the UN International Law Commission. The question it seeks to answer is the issue of how, and to what extent, its provisions influenced the development of international law on the responsibility of states and international organizations and the institution of international liability of states. Most notably, the present article demonstrates how the Liability Convention served as a reference point for the International Law Commission’s works struggling to codify the general rules of states’ liability. It also examines the factors that, from the mid- 1990s onward, have steadily diminished its role in the ongoing debate and how it finally informed the final shape of the 2006 Draft principles on the allocation of loss in the case of transboundary harm arising from hazardous activities. Furthermore, it analyses the 2001 Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA) and the 2011 Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations (ARIO). With this in mind, it is put forward that the differences mandate strict differentiation between international responsibility and international liability at the theoretical level. Nonetheless, the Liability Convention could furnish patterns based on which, notably, the institution of joint and several responsibility of states and international organizations, respectively, have been modelled. Therefore, it is concluded that the lex specialis and the self-contained character of the regime established under this Convention effectively limit its impact on the development of international regimes of responsibility and liability of states and international organizations. However, they do not eliminate them altogether. Ironically, in practical terms, the Convention marked the 2001 ARSIWA and, indirectly, the 2011 ARIO more decisively than the 2006 Draft Principles, even though the Convention – similar to the DP 2006 – addresses states’ liability, not their responsibility.