6 Responsibility, 6.6 Agim Behrami and Bekir Behrami v France, App. No. 71412/01 and Ruzhdi Saramati v France, Germany, and Norway, App. No. 78166/01, European Court of Human Rights, 2 May 2007

Subject(s):

Membership of international organizations — International organizations, practice and procedure — Responsibility of international organizations — Attribution

In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights issued a landmark decision on the admissibility of two applications (Behrami and Saramati) concerning events that had taken place in Kosovo subsequent to Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999). This note examines the two main legal findings of this decision, namely (i) that the impugned actions and omissions were, in principle, attributable to the United Nations, and (ii) that this attribution implied that the respondent states could not be held accountable for such actions and omissions under the Convention. The note deconstructs the reasoning of the Court on these points and assesses the legacy of this precedent in the field of the responsibility of international organizations.