This article provides a general introduction into the concept of accountability and its potential relevance to international and European legal scholarship. It argues that the scale of the shifts in governance and public authority away from the territorial state towards different forms and levels of governance, within and beyond the parameters of the traditional nation state, call for shifts in accountability relationships beyond that applicable within the confines of the territorial state. This, in turn, requires a rethinking of the concept, aims and forms of accountability as that can apply in international and European law. The articles explores five elements of the concept of accountability: the aims of accountability, the actors involved in processes of accountability, the institutions to which accountability must be rendered, the process of accountability, and the levels of accountability. In each of the aspects, the concept of accountability allows to move beyond traditional concepts such as liability and responsibility and to gain a better understanding of proper responses to abuses of power resulting from shifts in authority

International legal accountability involves the legal justification of an international actor's performance vis-à-vis others, the assessment or judgment of that performance against international legal standards, and the possible imposition of consequences if the actor fails to live up to applicable legal standards. This article examines questions of accountability in the international legal system through the lens of the state responsibility regime. It begins with an examination of the law of state responsibility and the accountability framework that it provides. By definition, that framework can facilitate only inter-state accountability on the basis of positive legal rules. The article then turns to the increasingly rich variety of other modes of international legal accountability. The rise of these alternative modes reflects the expansion of international law's normative horizons beyond inter-state concerns, the widening of the range of international actors, and the diversification of international law-making and implementation methods. It also reflects the fact that states rarely resort to the law of state responsibility to hold one another accountable for breaches of international law. Thus, while state responsibility remains the “paradigm form of responsibility on the international plane,” it is not clear that it constitutes the paradigm form of legal accountability in contemporary international practice.

This contribution builds on some earlier studies on the shortcomings of and ways around the traditional model of State responsibility under international law. It aims to obtain a better understanding of the nature of State responsibility, the reasons for its failure in some contexts and the basic characteristics of some alternative, complementary mechanisms that have been developed in international law. To that end, it understands the rules of State responsibility in a functional way: as a way of organizing our dealings with undesired events or situations. This understanding of State responsibility makes it possible to compare the rules of State responsibility with some other ways of dealing with undesired events. Following Francois Ewald's distinction between ‘responsibility’, ‘insurance’ and ‘precaution’, three co-existing models of dealing with undesired events will be discussed: (1) State responsibility for internationally wrongful acts (dealing with the reparation of a broken normalcy); (2) risk-management (dealing the mastering of time and disciplining of the future) and (3) precaution (dealing with conditions of late modernity or ‘world risk society’).

This contribution focuses on the accountability of international governmental organisations as a conceptual problem. To that end it gives a quite extensive summary of the Final Report of the International Law Association on the subject and examines whether accountability can be conceptualise as an actual or potential part of the existing legal system of international organisations. Mainly because of the underlying traditional approach to international (institutional) law, it is asserted that the ILA does not really succeed in this objective. Inspired by a more realistic view of the plurality of modern legal systems – as developed by the institutional legal theory – an alternative legal concept of accountability of international organisations is presented. Based on the fundamental value that legal power entails legal accountability, the legal concept covers all situations of alleged non-compliance by international organisations with a legally valid – but not necessarily also legally binding – rule of international law. For the time being such a concept will be heavily contested in theory and practice. However, for that very reason it can help to stimulate the development of international institutional law as long as the international legal community actually believes in the fundamental value and the divergent views only concern the content of the rules and practices involved in the accountability of international organisations.

This contribution focuses on a particular aspect of the broader current debate on the accountability of international organizations, on the rather unexplored question whether and to what extent international organizations are bound by national law and may become accountable for not complying with it. While it is largely accepted that States may act on a private law level being subject to rules of national law and ultimately becoming accountable before national courts or other accountability mechanisms, it is more questionable whether the same is true for international organizations.

A review of scholarly writings on the subject and an extensive analysis of the actual case-law by international as well as domestic courts and tribunals produce the following findings: While national private law, such as contracts or torts, is regularly deemed applicable to international organizations, it is far more uncertain whether national public law, such as health and safety legislation, building regulations, or labor law legislation, is binding upon international organizations.

Many international organizations claim that the application of such national rules might interfere with their independent functioning and that internal staff, safety, and other rules and regulations should be applied instead. However, where such internal law of international organizations falls short of generally accepted standards, serious accountability gaps may occur.

The article discusses the question of the international responsibility of the European Community against the background of the International Law Commission's (ILC) recent work on the responsibility of international organizations generally. It describes the role of the EC (and EU) in international relations and highlights its special legal features in the light of plentiful practical examples. The various practical issues drawn from the EC's voluminous international treaty practice are grouped into what the paper calls “horizontal” and “vertical” issues, illustrating the different aspects related to the division of competence between the organization and its Member States and the operating features of the EC legal system reflecting its nature as “executive federalism”. The underlying theme of the paper recognizes that there are important “public morals” aspects calling for clear rules on the responsibility of international organizations, but there are also practical realities related to the diversity of international organizations pointing to the direction of special rules for instance in the case of the EC. On the basis of a broad review of the EC practice, the paper offers some critical comments on the ILC work suggesting that the traditional notion of an international organization does not resonate well with the realities of the European Community. In particular it argues that the ILC has overlooked the notions such as the Regional Economic Integration Organization (REIO), which has emerged in multilateral treaty practice during recent years, and failed to consider broader international law implications that such practice entails, including for purposes of international responsibility.

According to the author, the answer to the question raised above is that neither a pure nor a semi-presidential system is to be recommended but rather a strong parliamentary system with an executive, the European Commission, whose democratic legitimacy is rooted in citizen involvement through parliamentary elections organized on the basis of political platforms presented by Euro-parties centred around well defined divisive issues. That would make the executive fully answerable towards the universally elected Parliament. In such a constellation, the accountability of the Council of Ministers should, as long as it remains the most prominent part of the Union legislature, be strengthened through devices such as transparency, mutual accountability between the Council and Parliament, and codes of ethics outlining the duties and responsibilities of individual Council members. As for the European Council, it should not be allowed to take over legislative or executive responsibilities but should continue to fulfil its role of driving the Union forward politically.

Most of the information is derived from the Reports of Parliament which are available in Dutch on www.overheid.nl/op/index.html. The Yearbook surveys are also available in a consolidated way in a database on www.asser.nl/pil/index.htm.

Although this sets out to be an annual survey, it may also include material which dates from a different parliamentary year from that given in the heading. This has proved to be inevitable in those cases when texts do not become available to the editor until long after their original date of drafting; written submissions to international organizations made by the Netherlands representatives frequently fall into this category.

This survey covers the treaties, international agreements, and other international instruments mentioned in the ‘Tractatenblad van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden’ – Treaty Series of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (abbr.: Trb.). Its purpose is to record the legal consequences of such agreements and instruments for the Netherlands, and Netherlands State acts in respect of them, such as signature, parliamentary approval, ratification, entry into force, provisional application, extension or limitation of territorial application, termination and abrogation. Signature by the Netherlands, however, is mentioned separately only if, in the case of multilateral treaties, such signature has taken place on a date different from the official date of conclusion of the treaty.

This survey covers municipal regulations relevant to international law that could not be dealt with adequately in the State Practice section. Translations of all or part of the text are usually given, together with descriptive or analytical notes where appropriate.

The information is derived from the Staatsblad and Staatscourant which are available in Dutch on www.overheid.nl/op/index.html. The Yearbook surveys are also available in a consolidated way in a database on www.asser.nl/pil/index.htm.

The decisions in this survey are taken from the documentation system of the Public International Law Department of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, which now contains abstracts from approximately 6000 decisions dating from 1839 to the present day. Most of the texts are taken from various Reports and Journals, but the Institute also receives the texts of decisions involving questions of public international law directly from the Courts concerned by special agreement between the Institute, the Ministry of Justice, and the Courts. If the decision has not (yet) been published elsewhere, the source of the text is given as ‘Institute's Collection’ followed by the administrative sequence number.

This survey is intended to provide information for international lawyers and law students, both in the Netherlands and abroad, on materials concerning international law published in and outside the Netherlands by Dutch authors. A few articles not meeting these criteria are also included. Furthermore, ‘international law’ has been interpreted widely, so as to include related matters, if the work in question deals with international law considerations. Fiscal law, polemology and specific regulations under European law are generally not included. The survey lists books, articles, inaugural lectures, dissertations and reports.