State responsibility in response to an allegation that Germany had participated in an armed attack by allowing United States military aircraft to use airfields in its territory in connection with the United States intervention in Lebanon. While denying that the measures taken by the United States and the United Kingdom in the Near East constituted intervention, the Federal Republic of Germany nevertheless seems to have accepted that the act of a State in placing its own territory at the disposal of another State in order to facilitate the commission of an unlawful use of force by that other State was itself an internationally wrongful act.277 Another example arises from the Tripoli bombing incident in April 1986. The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya charged the United Kingdom with responsibility for the event, based on the fact that the United Kingdom had allowed several of its air bases to be used for the launching of United States fighter planes to attack Libyan targets.278 The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya asserted that the United Kingdom “would be held partly responsible” for having “supported and contributed in a direct way” to the raid.279 The United Kingdom denied responsibility on the basis that the raid by the United States was lawful as an act of self-defence against Libyan terrorist attacks on United States targets.280 A proposed Security Council resolution concerning the attack was vetoed, but the General Assembly issued a resolution condemning the “military attack” as “a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law”, and calling upon all States “to refrain from extending any assistance or facilities for perpetrating acts of aggression against the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”.281 (9) The obligation not to provide aid or assistance to facilitate the commission of an internationally wrongful act by another State is not limited to the prohibition on the use of force. For instance, a State may incur responsibility if it assists another State to circumvent sanctions imposed by the Security Council282 or provides material aid to a State that uses the aid to commit human rights violations. In this respect, the General Assembly has called on Member States in a number of cases to refrain from supplying arms and other military assistance to countries found to be committing serious human rights violations.283 Where the allegation is that the assistance of a State has facilitated human rights abuses by another State, the particular circumstances of each case must be carefully examined to determine whether the aiding State by its aid was aware of and intended to facilitate the commission of the internationally wrongful conduct. 277 For the text of the note from the Federal Government, see Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, vol. 20 (August 1960), pp. 663–664. 278 See United States of America, Department of State Bulletin, No. 2111 (June 1986), p. 8. 279 See the statement of Ambassador Hamed Houdeiry, Libyan People’s Bureau, Paris, The Times, 16 April 1986, p. 6. 280 Statement of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister, House of Commons Debates, 6th series, vol. 95, col. 737 (15 April 1986), reprinted in BYBIL, 1986, vol. 57, pp. 637–638. 281 General Assembly resolution 41/38 of 20 November 1986, paras. 1 and 3. 282 See, e.g., Report by President Clinton, AJIL, vol. 91, No. 4 (October 1997), p. 709. 283 Report of the Economic and Social Council, Report of the Third Committee of the General Assembly, draft resolution XVII (A/37/745), p. 50. 67 (10) In accordance with article 16, the assisting State is responsible for its own act in deliberately assisting another State to breach an international obligation by which they are both bound. It is not responsible, as such, for the act of the assisted State. In some cases this may be a distinction without a difference: where the assistance is a necessary element in the wrongful act in absence of which it could not have occurred, the injury suffered can be concurrently attributed to the assisting and the acting State.284 In other cases, however, the difference may be very material: the assistance may have been only an incidental factor in the commission of the primary act, and may have contributed only to a minor degree, if at all, to the injury suffered. By assisting another State to commit an internationally wrongful act, a State should not necessarily be held to indemnify the victim for all the consequences of the act, but only for those which, in accordance with the principles stated in Part Two of the articles, flow from its own conduct. (11) Article 16 does not address the question of the admissibility of judicial proceedings to establish the responsibility of the aiding or assisting State in the absence of or without the consent of the aided or assisted State. ICJ has repeatedly affirmed that it cannot decide on the international responsibility of a State if, in order to do so, “it would have to rule, as a prerequisite, on the lawfulness”285 of the conduct of another State, in the latter’s absence and without its consent. This is the so-called Monetary Gold principle.286 That principle may well apply to cases under article 16, since it is of the essence of the responsibility of the aiding or assisting State that the aided or assisted State itself committed an internationally wrongful act. The wrongfulness of the aid or assistance given by the former is dependent, inter alia, on the wrongfulness of the conduct of the latter. This may present practical difficulties in some cases in establishing the responsibility of the aiding or assisting State, but it does not vitiate the purpose of article 16. The Monetary Gold principle is concerned with the admissibility of claims in international judicial proceedings, not with questions of responsibility as such. Moreover, that principle is not all-embracing, and the Monetary Gold principle may not be a barrier to judicial proceedings in every case. In any event, wrongful assistance given to another State has frequently led to diplomatic protests. States are entitled to assert complicity in the wrongful conduct of another State even though no international court may have jurisdiction to rule on the charge, at all or in the absence of the other State. Article 17. Direction and control exercised over the commission of an internationally wrongful act A State which directs and controls another State in the commission of an internationally wrongful act by the latter is internationally responsible for that act if: (a) that State does so with knowledge of the circumstances of the internationally wrongful act; and 284 For the question of concurrent responsibility of several States for the same injury, see article 47 and commentary. 285 East Timor (see footnote 54 above), p. 105, para. 35. 286 Monetary Gold Removed from Rome in 1943, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1954, p. 19, at p. 32; Certain Phosphate Lands in Nauru, Preliminary Objections (see footnote 230 above), p. 261, para. 55.