Društvene i Humanističke Studije (Feb 2021)
Criminal Responsibility of States In International Law: Rethinking Or Permanent Abandonment of the Concept?
Abstract
The responsibility of states and international organizations is an essential issue of contemporary international law. All other debates in this branch of law seem to follow up on this issue.In fact, whenever a state violates its international obligation, the question of the responsibilityof such a state arises. However, in addition to being essential, this issue is also an extremelypolitically sensitive area, as only some states, guided mainly by demand for respect for theirterritorial sovereignty and the principle of equality of all states, are willing to accept all theconsequences of such behavior in international relations with other subjects of internationallaw, while those that consider themselves more equal than others (primus inter pares), particularly the great world powers, will be largely reluctant to accept legal responsibility for theirillegal acts, and especially for the commission of international crimes in the narrow sense,which includes the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime ofaggression. With international organizations, the problems in this regard are perhaps evengreater.In this paper we examine the meaning of further survival of the concept of criminal responsibility of states and international organizations, wanting to examine the concept and definitionof criminal responsibility of transnational corporations at the international level, while in thesecond part of the article we try to shed a light on political-legal responsibility. In addition tothe fact that this concept is probably unsustainable under international law, it seems that theapproach to advocating for the criminal responsibility of the state, as well as international organizations, is unnecessary. Therefore, we should work on building and thoroughly elaboratingthe concept of international responsibility of the state and the international organization inthe conditions of international crimes stricto sensu, in other words, serious breaches of obligations arising from peremptory norms of general international law. In this way, without creating legally unsustainable constructions, essentially the same goal would be achieved.
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