III Points of Substantive Law, Division C: State Responsibility And International Claims, Ch.I: The ‘Act of the State’ Under International Law

I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people. Edmund Burke (1729–1797), Speech on the Conciliation of America, May 1775, Speeches, Vol. II, p. 136. At the outset, it may be noted that it is of course not only in the context of State responsibility that it may be necessary to consider whether or not an act attributed to a State was in fact, and as a matter of law, performed by an entity empowered for that purpose to represent the State internationally. Where responsibility is invoked on the basis of an ‘organ’ of the State, as...