Blokker, Niels M. --- "Preparing Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations: Does the International Law Commission Take International Organizations Seriously? A Mid-term Review" [2011] ELECD 528; in Klabbers, Jan; Wallendahl, Åsa (eds), "Research Handbook on the Law of International Organizations" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Law of International Organizations

Editor(s): Klabbers, Jan; Wallendahl, Åsa

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201355

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Preparing Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations: Does the International Law Commission Take International Organizations Seriously? A Mid-term Review

Author(s): Blokker, Niels M.

Number of pages: 29

Extract:

12 Preparing articles on responsibility of
international organizations: Does the
International Law Commission take
international organizations seriously?
A mid-term review
Niels M. Blokker*



INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this contribution is to examine the current work of the
International Law Commission (ILC) and its Special Rapporteur Giorgio Gaja
with regard to responsibility of international organizations. It will not give a full
overview of this work. Rather, the focus will be on two specific questions. The
first question stems from the fact that the ILC in its work has taken as a starting
point the articles on state responsibility. In using these articles, has the ILC suffi-
ciently taken into account the special nature of international organizations, the
characteristics by which they distinguish themselves from states? The second
question is whether the ILC has sufficiently taken into consideration the exist-
ing great variety of international organizations, from very small institutions with
hardly any powers ­ and corresponding little likelihood for acting wrongfully
and being held responsible ­ to powerful entities with considerable operational
activities and related possibilities for responsibility issues to arise. However,
before these questions are addressed, the section below will first present a brief
introduction to the issue of responsibility of international organizations. Why
has this issue been only of minor importance, in practice and in doctrine, until
some twenty years ago? Why is it of much more importance nowadays?


EMERGING ATTENTION FOR THE ISSUE OF
RESPONSIBILITY OF INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS: FASHION OR A RESPONSE TO A
REAL NEED?
The notion of ...