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Second, the secondary rules of state responsibility, as Crawford notes, are "rigorously general in... character,"4 encompassing all types of international obligationsregardless of their source, subject matter, or importance to the international community.50 They apply to both acts and omissions, to treaty obligations and customary norms, to breaches of bilateral as well as multilateral obligations, and to the whole gamut of particular subject areas-human rights law, environmental law, humanitarian law, economic law, the law of the sea, and so forth. It is worth emphasizing the distinctive character of this approach to state responsibility. In common-law countries, there is no general regime of legal responsibility. Substantive rules are classified by their subject matter (e.g., criminal law, tort, contracts, property, family law), each characterized by its own regime of "responsibility" with its own remedies, rules of attribution and invocation, and so forth.5 Indeed, to many common lawyers, the notion that anythinguseful can be said of a general nature about obligation or responsibility seems alien.52 Common lawyers tend to find comfort in Holmes's famous aphorism that the life of the law is not logic but experience. But the various special rapporteurs, except the last, have come from the civil-law tradition and have been more at home with the notion of articulating homogeneous, general rules of responsibility. Because the secondary rules of state responsibility are general in nature, they can be studied independently of the primary rules of obligation. They evince neutrality on many disputed or controversial substantive matters. This was the key that allowed Ago to unlock state responsibility from the box into which Garcia-Amador had placed it through his effort to articulate substantive norms governing the protection of aliens. By focusing on general rules of responsibility, stated at a high level of abstraction, Ago created a politically safe space within which the ILC could work and largely avoid the contentious debates of the day about expropriation and valuation of property.55 It should be bome in mind, however, that although the articles are general in coverage, they represent only default or residual rules; they do not necessarily apply in all cases. Particular treaty regimes or rules of customary international law can establish their own special rules of responsibility-for example, regarding remedies-that differ from those set forth in the articles. 4 Indeed, "self-contained" treaty regimes such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the European Convention on Human Rights may establish a more or less complete regime of responsibility to which the articles are inapplicable.55 Following Ago, the ILC explained the character of the articles through the distinction between "secondary" and "primary" rules. But this distinction has proved elusive and in any event is unnecessary. To some degree, classifying an issue as part of the rule of conduct (the primary rule) or as part of the determination of whether that rule has been violated (the secondary rule) is arbitrary. What defines the scope of the articles is not their "secondary"status but their generality: the articles represent those areas where the ILC could identify and reach consensus on general propositions that can be applied more or less comprehensively across the entire range of international law.5 " They express what the ILC believes could be said, in general, of international obligations and their breach. Consider, for example, the contrasting treatment of fault and injury, on the one hand, and attribution, on the other. The articles decline to address the former on the ground that fault and injury are determined by the primary rules. But the articles do set forth detailed "secondary" rules of attribution. One couldjust as well argue, however, that fault and injury relate to whether a particular rule of conduct has been violated (and hence are secondary rules), and that attribution is part of the complete specification of a primary rule (i.e., by addressing the actors to whom the primary rule applies).57 Given the elusiveness of the line between "primary" and "secondary" rules, commentators have not surprisingly displayed considerable confusion about categorizing particular issues such as attribution and fault. One commentator, for example, criticized the rules on attribution for providing only limited state responsibility for acts of individuals,"8 only to be told in response not to worry, since the primary rules can create much wider state responsibility for private acts59 -a point illustrated by the Tehran Hostages case and by environmental agreements that require states to limit national emissions of pollutants, including those by private entities.' As to fault, the Commission correctly notes in the commentary that there is no general rule of international law requiring fault: whether fault is an element of a wrongful act depends on the primary rule in question.6' But the absence of a general rule does not in itself imply that fault is a primary rather than a secondary issue. The real point is that the ILC did not find it possible to say anything of a general nature about the issue. The articles reflect the ILC's belief that trans-substantive default rules exist regarding attribution,justifications, and remedies, but not fault or injury-hence, the former issues are included in the articles but not the latter. The ILC articles presume that international law is a unified body of law, with common characteristics that operate in similar ways across its various fields (subject, of course, to lex specialis derogations created by particular states in particular settings). Whether this is a desirable approach will be a matter of debate. In response to the fragmentation of international law, many see unity and coherence in international law as virtues." But a one-size-fits-all approach may come at a certain price, by inhibiting the elaboration of more variegated international norms-liability rules, property rules, and so forth, each with their own characteristic set of remedies63 -which can be used in a more precise way to pursue a complex range of community goals.64The articles vary greatly in their specificity. With respect to some issues, the only rules that could be enunciated to apply across the entire range of international law were essentially tautologies. In other areas, the articles are quite detailed. Throughout, the ILC and its various special rapporteurs had to find balanced results acceptable within the Commission and likely to be acceptable to states in the General Assembly and other future "consumers." Like more overtly political negotiations, the ILC's deliberations on state responsibility resulted in some provisions that represent least common denominators or rely on creative ambiguity. Definition of an Internationally Wrongful Act The articles define how state responsibility comes into play in purely formal terms. Article 1 states that "every internationally wrongful act of a State entails the international responsibility of that State." Crawford has called this article-without apparent irony-"as near a piece of genius as the Commission has ever come to."65 But it is essentially tautological, pushing into the phrase "internationally wrongful act" key substantive issues, such as whether fault and injury are conditions of international responsibility in particular situations. The articles characterize other core concepts in equally tautological terms. Article 2 defines an "internationally wrongful act" as an act attributable to a state that constitutes a breach of an international obligation. Article 12 defines "breach of an international obligation" as "an act... not in conformity with what is required.., by that obligation." Together, these articles state what is, in essence, a logical equation: conduct not in conformity with an international obligation and attributable to a state equals an internationally wrongful act resulting in state responsibility. Like the dog that didn't bark, the absence of nontautological elements in the definition of state responsibility (such as substantive requirements of fault and/or injury) is highly revealing. Substantive elements such as fault and injury may be conditions of state responsibility in particular cases-but, by not addressing these subjects, the articles signal the ILC's view that they are addressed by the primary rule involved, not by any general secondary rule. Crawford characterizes the articles as establishing an "objective" regime of responsibility, since they define the breach of an international obligation in objective terms, without reference to the actor's mental state. 66 But, strictly speaking, the articles are in themselves neutral; they establish neither an objective nor a subjective regime. Instead, they leave it to the primary rules of obligation to determine whetAttribution The degree to which states should be held responsible for conduct involving private actors is an increasingly significant contemporary issue, as nonstate actors such as Al Qaeda, Somali warlords, multinational corporations, and nongovernmental organizations play greater international roles, and as governments privatize some traditional functions and enter into a variety of public-private collaborations with international organizations and private actors. Articles 4-11 address these matters through rules of "attribution" that indicate when an act should