414 Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1914– )be freely made, subject to one key condition: that they are not incompatible
with the general “object and purpose” of the treaty.
Sometimes, the commission produced authoritative statements of exist-
ing law, without envisaging their being incorporated into treaties. A set of
such articles was produced by the I.L.C. on the subject of most- favored-
nation clauses in treaties in 1978, with a second part still in progress as of
2013. In addition, a set of articles was agreed in 1999 regarding state suc-
cession and nationality. Another noteworthy set of articles, completed in
2006, dealt with rules and principles governing the diplomatic protection of
nationals abroad. Th is was largely the work of the South African and
Dutch lawyer John Dugard.
Most useful of all was a set of articles concluded in 2001 (aft er some thirty
years of continuous eff ort) on the subject of state responsibility. Th e initial
work was largely by the Italian lawyer Roberto Ago, of the University of
Rome (and later the World Court), with the Australian lawyer James Craw-
ford, professor of law at Cambridge, as the leading fi gure in the fi nal stages
of the draft ing. State responsibility is the ultimate in “lawyers’ law” in the
international sphere. It comprises the rules and principles that govern deter-
minations of liability in general in international law— the prerequisites
for liability, special defenses to be recognized, and legal consequences of
breaches of law, including remedies available to victim states. Th is some-
what arid fi eld of law generated no headlines around the world. But, once
the draft ing was complete, it became an indispensable operating manual for
practicing international lawyers the world over.
Contending Schools
Th e participants in the 1947 session of the Hague Academy of International
Law were treated to a rare privilege. Th ey were able to see three prominent
international lawyers expounding three distinct schools of thought. Cham-
pioning the cause of liberalism was Lauterpacht. His topic was the develop-
ing international law of human rights. For the cause of mainstream positiv-
ism, there was Serge Krylov, the Soviet judge on the World Court. Presenting
the solidarist perspective was a Belgian lawyer named Maurice Bourquin,
who taught at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. His