21. Having so found, we revert to a consideration of the
Respondent’s culpability for the Commission’s conduct.
Learned Counsel for the Applicant relied on Articles 4 and 5 of
the ILC Articles for his submission that the Commission’s
conduct was attributable to the State of Rwanda in so far as
it was an organ thereof and/ or had been empowered by the
laws of Rwanda to exercise elements of governmental
authority. As quite rightly advanced by Mr. Gimara, Article
4(1) of the ILC Articles attributes the conduct of an organ of
a State to that State regardless of whether that organ
exercises a legislative, executive, judicial or other function.
However, Article 4(2) defines an organ, the conduct of
which would be attributable to a State, to include ‘any
person or entity which has that status in accordance with the
internal law of the State. That provision thus recognizes the
applicability of a State’s internal law to a determination of
whether or not a party whose conduct is in issue is, in fact, an
organ of the State. Indeed paragraph 6 of the commentary
to Article 4 does recognize this in the following terms:
“In determining what constitutes an organ of a State for the
purposes of responsibility, the internal law and practice of
each State are of prime importance. The structure of the
State and the function of its organs are not, in general,
governed by international law. It is a matter for each State
to decide how its administration is to be structured and
which functions are to be assumed by government.”
22. In the same vein in Noble Ventures Inc. vs. Romania (supra) it
was held:
“Art. 4 2001 ILC Draft (Article 4 of the ILC Articles) lays down
the well established rule that the conduct of any State
organ, being understood as including any person or entity
which has that status in accordance with the internal law of
the State, shall be considered as an act of that State under
REFERENCE No. 10 OF 2013
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