The Concepts of Subjective and Objective International Law Responsibilities of a State

The denotations of two concepts that are most widely known in the doctrine of the international law are being analyzed. The concepts are about the place and the significance of guilt in determining the state responsibility for international criminal activity: specifically, the concepts of the subjective and the objective state’s responsibility. The aim of this analysis is to identify whether it is possible for a state to bear international criminal responsibility without having its guilt been proved and in which cases there is no necessity to prove a state guilt for determining its international law responsibility. The conclusion is made that in the sphere of a state’s responsibility for international criminal activity, the concept of objective criminal responsibility is the most correspondent to the current international law. In the article, the denotation of this concept is disclosed with dependence on the kind of the international criminal action (ordinary international misdemeanor (delict) or international crime). In addition, the conclusion states that the content of the objective state’s responsibility concept corresponds to the conventional principles of the current international law as well as to the viewpoint of the U.N. International Law Commission and to the provisions of the 2001 Articles on the responsibility of states for international criminal activities. In the concepts of the subjective and the objective state’s responsibility for international criminal activities, the mutual approach is identified regarding determining a state’s responsibility guilt prove. Such mutuality of the approaches lies in the fact acknowledgement that in the process of determining a state responsible for some actions, it is necessary to identify the coherence between a state and an individual or individuals that directly committed a crime.