66 Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its fifty-third session Commentary (1) Article 16 deals with the situation where one State provides aid or assistance to another with a view to facilitating the commission of an internationally wrongful act by the latter. Such situations arise where a State voluntarily assists or aids another State in carrying out conduct which violates the international obligations of the latter, for example, by knowingly providing an essential facility or financing the activity in question. Other examples include providing means for the closing of an international waterway, facilitating the abduction of persons on foreign soil, or assisting in the destruction of property belonging to nationals of a third country. The State primarily responsible in each case is the acting State, and the assisting State has only a supporting role. Hence the use of the term “by the latter” in the chapeau to article 16, which distinguishes the situation of aid or assistance from that of co-perpetrators or co-participants in an internationally wrongful act. Under article 16, aid or assistance by the assisting State is not to be confused with the responsibility of the acting State. In such a case, the assisting State will only be responsible to the extent that its own conduct has caused or contributed to the internationally wrongful act. Thus, in cases where that internationally wrongful act would clearly have occurred in any event, the responsibility of the assisting State will not extend to compensating for the act itself. (2) Various specific substantive rules exist, prohibiting one State from providing assistance in the commission of certain wrongful acts by other States or even requiring third States to prevent or repress such acts.273 Such provisions do not rely on any general principle of derived responsibility, nor do they deny the existence of such a principle, and it would be wrong to infer from them the non-existence of any general rule. As to treaty provisions such as Article 2, paragraph 5, of the Charter of the United Nations, again these have a specific rationale which goes well beyond the scope and purpose of article 16. (3) Article 16 limits the scope of responsibility for aid or assistance in three ways. First, the relevant State organ or agency providing aid or assistance must be aware of the circumstances making the conduct of the assisted State internationally wrongful; secondly, the aid or assistance must be given with a view to facilitating the commission of that act, and must actually do so; and thirdly, the completed act must be such that it would have been wrongful had it been committed by the assisting State itself. (4) The requirement that the assisting State be aware of the circumstances making the conduct of the assisted State internationally wrongful is reflected by the phrase “knowledge of the circumstances of the internationally wrongful act”. A State providing material or financial assistance or aid to another State does not normally assume the risk that its assistance or aid may be used to carry out an internationally wrongful act. If the assisting or aid273 See, e.g., the first principle of the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations (General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV) of 24 October 1970, annex); and article 3 (f) of the Definition of Aggression (General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 14 December 1974, annex). ing State is unaware of the circumstances in which its aid or assistance is intended to be used by the other State, it bears no international responsibility. (5) The second requirement is that the aid or assistance must be given with a view to facilitating the commission of the wrongful act, and must actually do so. This limits the application of article 16 to those cases where the aid or assistance given is clearly linked to the subsequent wrongful conduct. A State is not responsible for aid or assistance under article 16 unless the relevant State organ intended, by the aid or assistance given, to facilitate the occurrence of the wrongful conduct and the internationally wrongful conduct is actually committed by the aided or assisted State. There is no requirement that the aid or assistance should have been essential to the performance of the internationally wrongful act; it is sufficient if it contributed significantly to that act. (6) The third condition limits article 16 to aid or assistance in the breach of obligations by which the aiding or assisting State is itself bound. An aiding or assisting State may not deliberately procure the breach by another State of an obligation by which both States are bound; a State cannot do by another what it cannot do by itself. On the other hand, a State is not bound by obligations of another State vis-à-vis third States. This basic principle is also embodied in articles 34 and 35 of the 1969 Vienna Convention. Correspondingly, a State is free to act for itself in a way which is inconsistent with the obligations of another State vis-à-vis third States. Any question of responsibility in such cases will be a matter for the State to whom assistance is provided vis-à-vis the injured State. Thus, it is a necessary requirement for the responsibility of an assisting State that the conduct in question, if attributable to the assisting State, would have constituted a breach of its own international obligations. (7) State practice supports assigning international responsibility to a State which deliberately participates in the internationally wrongful conduct of another through the provision of aid or assistance, in circumstances where the obligation breached is equally opposable to the assisting State. For example, in 1984 the Islamic Republic of Iran protested against the supply of financial and military aid to Iraq by the United Kingdom, which allegedly included chemical weapons used in attacks against Iranian troops, on the ground that the assistance was facilitating acts of aggression by Iraq.274 The Government of the United Kingdom denied both the allegation that it had chemical weapons and that it had supplied them to Iraq.275 In 1998, a similar allegation surfaced that the Sudan had assisted Iraq to manufacture chemical weapons by allowing Sudanese installations to be used by Iraqi technicians for steps in the production of nerve gas. The allegation was denied by Iraq’s representative to the United Nations.276 (8) The obligation not to use force may also be breached by an assisting State through permitting the use of its territory by another State to carry out an armed attack against a third State. An example is provided by a statement made by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany 274 The New York Times, 6 March 1984, p. A1. 5 March 1984, p. A3. 276 Ibid., 26 August 1998, p. A8. 275 Ibid.,