Responsibility of the Successor State for Internationally Wrongful Acts Committed Before the Date of Succession

Succession of states means the replacement of a state by another in the respon- sibility for the international relations of a particular territory. In the event of any territorial change, the question arises as to whether the rights and obliga- tions associated with that territory disappear or are transferred to the state to which the territory has been transferred. Older international legal theories re- jected the possibility of succession of rights and obligations, which applied not only to international responsibility but also to other matters of succession. Mo- dern practice, however, shows, that many of these theories are now redundant due to a different practice. Nevertheless, significant number of international law experts reject the possibility of succession to international responsibility and justify this with a rule of the law of international responsibility that "every internationally wrongful act of a State entails the international responsibility of that State”. Since the successor state is not that state within the meaning of the rule, the law of international responsibility appears to place an impenetrable wall in front of the possibility of the successor state succeeding to international responsibility. Based on the basic principles of the law of international respon- sibility and the law of succession of states, the article demonstrates that the law of international responsibility allows for the possibility for the successor State to be responsible for illegal acts committed before the date of the succession.

Keywords: State succession, international responsibility, succession of international responsibility, predecessor State, successor State.