118 Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its fifty-third session dependent” obligation.669 In each of these cases, the possible suspension or termination of the obligation or of its performance by the injured State may be of little value to it as a remedy. Its primary interest may be in the restoration of the legal relationship by cessation and reparation. (6) Pursuant to subparagraph (a) of article 42, a State is “injured” if the obligation breached was owed to it individually. The expression “individually” indicates that in the circumstances, performance of the obligation was owed to that State. This will necessarily be true of an obligation arising under a bilateral treaty between the two States parties to it, but it will also be true in other cases, e.g. of a unilateral commitment made by one State to another. It may be the case under a rule of general international law: thus, for example, rules concerning the non-navigational uses of an international river which may give rise to individual obligations as between one riparian State and another. Or it may be true under a multilateral treaty where particular performance is incumbent under the treaty as between one State party and another. For example, the obligation of the receiving State under article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to protect the premises of a mission is owed to the sending State. Such cases are to be contrasted with situations where performance of the obligation is owed generally to the parties to the treaty at the same time and is not differentiated or individualized. It will be a matter for the interpretation and application of the primary rule to determine into which of the categories an obligation comes. The following discussion is illustrative only. (7) An obvious example of cases coming within the scope of subparagraph (a) is a bilateral treaty relationship. If one State violates an obligation the performance of which is owed specifically to another State, the latter is an “injured State” in the sense of article 42. Other examples include binding unilateral acts by which one State assumes an obligation vis-à-vis another State; or the case of a treaty establishing obligations owed to a third State not party to the treaty.670 If it is established that the beneficiaries of the promise or the stipulation in favour of a third State were intended to acquire actual rights to performance of the obligation in question, they will be injured by its breach. Another example is a binding judgement of an international court or tribunal imposing obligations on one State party to the litigation for the benefit of the other party.671 (8) In addition, subparagraph (a) is intended to cover cases where the performance of an obligation under a multilateral treaty or customary international law is owed to one particular State. The scope of subparagraph (a) in this respect is different from that of article 60, paragraph 1, of the 1969 Vienna Convention, which relies on the formal criterion of bilateral as compared with multilat669 The notion of “integral” obligations was developed by Fitzmaurice as Special Rapporteur on the Law of Treaties: see Yearbook … 1957, vol. II, p. 54. The term has sometimes given rise to confusion, being used to refer to human rights or environmental obligations which are not owed on an “all or nothing” basis. The term “interdependent obligations” may be more appropriate. 670 Cf. the 1969 Vienna Convention, art. 36. 671 See, e.g., Article 59 of the Statute of ICJ. eral treaties. But although a multilateral treaty will characteristically establish a framework of rules applicable to all the States parties, in certain cases its performance in a given situation involves a relationship of a bilateral character between two parties. Multilateral treaties of this kind have often been referred to as giving rise to “ ‘bundles’ of bilateral relations”.672 (9) The identification of one particular State as injured by a breach of an obligation under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations does not exclude that all States parties may have an interest of a general character in compliance with international law and in the continuation of international institutions and arrangements which have been built up over the years. In the United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran case, after referring to the “fundamentally unlawful character” of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s conduct in participating in the detention of the diplomatic and consular personnel, the Court drew: the attention of the entire international community, of which Iran itself has been a member since time immemorial, to the irreparable harm that may be caused by events of the kind now before the Court. Such events cannot fail to undermine the edifice of law carefully constructed by mankind over a period of centuries, the maintenance of which is vital for the security and well-being of the complex international community of the present day, to which it is more essential than ever that the rules developed to ensure the ordered progress of relations between its members should be constantly and scrupulously respected.673 (10) Although discussion of multilateral obligations has generally focused on those arising under multilateral treaties, similar considerations apply to obligations under rules of customary international law. For example, the rules of general international law governing the diplomatic or consular relations between States establish bilateral relations between particular receiving and sending States, and violations of these obligations by a particular receiving State injure the sending State to which performance was owed in the specific case. (11) Subparagraph (b) deals with injury arising from violations of collective obligations, i.e. obligations that apply between more than two States and whose performance in the given case is not owed to one State individually, but to a group of States or even the international community as a whole. The violation of these obligations only injures any particular State if additional requirements are met. In using the expression “group of States”, article 42, subparagraph (b), does not imply that the group has any separate existence or that it has separate legal personality. Rather, the term is intended to refer to a group of States, consisting of all or a considerable number of States in the world or in a given region, which have combined to achieve some collective purpose and which may be 672 See, e.g., K. Sachariew, “State responsibility for multilateral treaty violations: identifying the ‘injured State’ and its legal status”, Netherlands International Law Review, vol. 35, No. 3 (1988), p. 273, at pp. 277–278; B. Simma, “Bilateralism and community interest in the law of State responsibility”, International Law at a Time of Perplexity: Essays in Honour of Shabtai Rosenne, Y. Dinstein, ed. (Dordrecht, Martinus Nijhoff, 1989), p. 821, at p. 823; C. Annacker, “The legal régime of erga omnes obligations in international law”, Austrian Journal of Public and International Law, vol. 46, No. 2 (1994), p. 131, at p. 136; and D. N. Hutchinson, “Solidarity and breaches of multilateral treaties”, BYBIL, 1988, vol. 59, p. 151, at pp. 154–155. 673 United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran (see footnote 59 above), pp. 41–43, paras. 89 and 92.