Countermeasure in
public international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
refers to
reprisals
A reprisal is a limited and deliberate violation of international law to punish another sovereign state that has already broken them. Since the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (AP 1), reprisals in the laws of war are extremel ...
not involving the use of force. In other words, it refers to non-violent acts which are illegal in themselves, but become legal when executed by one state in response to the commission of an earlier illegal act by another state towards the former.
Definition
The leading case on countermeasure is the 1997
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
decision in
Gabčíkovo – Nagymaros Dams case. The court remarked that, for a countermeasure to be justifiable, it must meet the conditions below:
# The act constituting countermeasure must be taken in response to a previous intentional wrongful act of another state and must be directed against that state.
# The injured state must have already called upon the state committing the wrongful act to discontinue its wrongful conduct or to make reparation, but the request was refused.
# The countermeasure must be commensurate with the injury suffered, taking into account the rights in question.
# The purpose behind evoking the countermeasure is to induce the wrongdoing state to comply with its obligations under international law. Therefore, the measure must be reversible.
State responsibility
Article 22 of the
International Law Commission
The International Law Commission (ILC) is a body of experts responsible for helping develop and codify international law. It is composed of 34 individuals recognized for their expertise and qualifications in international law, who are elected by t ...
draft articles on state responsibility states that the wrongfulness of an act is precluded if the act constitutes a countermeasure.
[http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/draft_articles/9_6_2001.pdf ] Therefore, a validly executed countermeasure is legal under international law.
References
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International law