State Responsibility in International Law

by René Provost (Editor)

In the wake of the adoption by the International Law Commission of a complete set of articles on state responsibility in international law in 2001, this collection assembles a number of essays tracing key debates which have marked the evolution of this field over the last fifty years. These include explorations of the general theory of state responsibility (link between ’primary’ and ’secondary’ rules, the place of due diligence, the link between liability and wrongfulness), the consequences of an internationally wrongful act (nature of remedies, suitability of countermeasures, third states and the shift from bilateralism to community interests in the law of state responsibility), the debate over criminalizing state responsibility, and the continuing relevance of the law of injuries to aliens. The collection also contains a series of essays offering critical perspectives on state responsibility, including feminist and developing world perspectives. It is completed by an extensive and up-to-date bibliography.

608 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

Professor René Provost, Ad. E., teaches and conducts research in public international law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, legal theory and legal anthropology. He is particularly interested in human rights, international criminal law, the law of armed conflict, and the intersection of law and culture. In September 2015, he was awarded a fellowship by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation for his research project that aims to explore the possibility of convincing armed, non-state groups to apply justice by respecting minimum standards of international humanitarian law in conflict zones.

He is the author of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Cambridge University Press, 2002), the editor of State Responsibility in International Law (Ashgate/Dartmouth, 2002) and Mapping the Boundaries of Belonging: Law Between Religious Revival and Post-Multiculturalism (Oxford university Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of International Law Chiefly As Applied and Interpreted in Canada (Emond Mongtgomery, 2006), Confronting Genocide (Springer Verlag, 2011), and Dialogues on Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (Springer Verlag, 2013). Professor Provost served as Law Clerk to Justice L'Heureux-Dubé of the Supreme Court of Canada. He was the President of the Société québécoise de droit international from 2002 to 2006. Professor Provost was the founding Director of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism from 2005 to 2010.

Professor Provost is currently the principal investigator for the Centaur Jurisprudence Project, an interdisciplinary research team in law and anthropology that explores the ways in which the concept of culture is transformed by its consideration through different legal processes. Professor Provost seeks to apply to international law the insights of legal pluralism, with particular attention to the normative implications of this perspective for non-state actors.

Professor Provost was awarded the Barreau du Québec's Advocatus Emeritus (Ad. E.) distinction in 2017.