Hobbes, Kant and the likely impact of the I.L.C.’s articles of state responsibility

As anyone with a minimal notion of Spain’s great literary tradition could already have noted, Don Quixote’s conspicuous warning to Sancho Panza applies squarely to “the things of international law”. The issue of State responsibility stands as a remarkable example, indeed, of Miguel de Cervantes’ world-wide known character’s wisdom as applied to all bureaucratic activity able to potentially threaten to tame the same power it serves. Although the International Law Commission took more than 45 years to draft its Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, their future is bound to remain inextricably linked to their present in the years to come. Are we witnessing the onset of a new period of “legal interregnum” in the field? Whether one favours the use of this expression or not, the truth still remains that we will not dispose of an international convention in vigour, at least, for the next twenty years. Furthermore, the mere convenience of having a convention on State responsibility is increasingly challenged and, arguably, for some sound reasons. [...]