국제공동체의 근본이익 침해에 대한 국가책임의 추궁

Traditional international law has only regulated mutual relations between States, aiming to protect, coordinate or compromise their individual interests. Nowdays, international law governs the relations between the international community as a whole and its individual members as well. This transformation has happened along with the confirmation of the existence of the fundamental interest of the international community. The international community imposes upon States obligations not to infringe the fundamental interests, which results in the establishment of the legal relations between the community and States. According to the conviction that the fundamental interests of the international community as a whole take precedence even over the sovereignty of States, the norms protecting those interests have been recognized peremptory. Furthermore, the violation by a State of such obligations makes possible the invocation of responsibility by the community as a whole, in other words, by any other State. This means that such obligations have been vested with erga omnes character. The purpose of this research is to examine the system of State responsibility for violations of the rules of general international law which aim to protect the fundamental interests of the international community as a whole. For this purpose, this paper points out the appearance of obligations erga omnes or jus cogens, intended to protect the fundamental interests of the international community.(II) In the next section, it is emphasized that an internationally wrongful acts constituting a violation of the fundamental interest of the international community can generate the invocation of State responsibility by all the States including the victim State.(III) The last section deals with the invocability of the responsibility through international adjudication for violations of obligations erga omnes or peremptory norms leading to the infringement of the fundamental interests of international community. Even in case of violation of such interests, actio popularis or litigation for a public interest has faced obstacles because international courts have stuck to the principle of consent to the jurisdiction by States parties and have required the existence of substantive rights or interests for locus standi in the case in question. It remains to be seen whether and to what extent international judiciaries will open their door to actio popularis against the violations of jus cogens or obligations erga omnes of general international law.(IV)