60 Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its fifty-third session without requiring that the act necessarily be completed in a single instant. (3) In accordance with paragraph 2, a continuing wrongful act, on the other hand, occupies the entire period during which the act continues and remains not in conformity with the international obligation, provided that the State is bound by the international obligation during that period.237 Examples of continuing wrongful acts include the maintenance in effect of legislative provisions incompatible with treaty obligations of the enacting State, unlawful detention of a foreign official or unlawful occupation of embassy premises, maintenance by force of colonial domination, unlawful occupation of part of the territory of another State or stationing armed forces in another State without its consent. (4) Whether a wrongful act is completed or has a continuing character will depend both on the primary obligation and the circumstances of the given case. For example, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has interpreted forced or involuntary disappearance as a continuing wrongful act, one which continues for as long as the person concerned is unaccounted for.238 The question whether a wrongful taking of property is a completed or continuing act likewise depends to some extent on the content of the primary rule said to have been violated. Where an expropriation is carried out by legal process, with the consequence that title to the property concerned is transferred, the expropriation itself will then be a completed act. The position with a de facto, “creeping” or disguised occupation, however, may well be different.239 Exceptionally, a tribunal may be justified in refusing to recognize a law or decree at all, with the consequence that the resulting denial of status, ownership or possession may give rise to a continuing wrongful act.240 (5) Moreover, the distinction between completed and continuing acts is a relative one. A continuing wrongful act itself can cease: thus a hostage can be released, or the body of a disappeared person returned to the next of kin. In essence, a continuing wrongful act is one which has been commenced but has not been completed at the relevant time. Where a continuing wrongful act has ceased, for example by the release of hostages or the withdrawal of forces from territory unlawfully occupied, the act is considered for the future as no longer having a continuing character, even though certain effects of the act may continue. In this respect, it is covered by paragraph 1 of article 14. (6) An act does not have a continuing character merely because its effects or consequences extend in time. It must be the wrongful act as such which continues. In many cases of internationally wrongful acts, their consequences may be prolonged. The pain and suffering caused by earlier acts of torture or the economic effects of the expropriation of property continue even though the torture has ceased or title to the property has passed. Such 237 See article 13 and commentary, especially para. (2). Blake, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Series C, No. 36, para. 67 (1998). 239 Papamichalopoulos (see footnote 236 above). 240 Loizidou, Merits (see footnote 160 above), p. 2216. 238 consequences are the subject of the secondary obligations of reparation, including restitution, as required by Part Two of the articles. The prolongation of such effects will be relevant, for example, in determining the amount of compensation payable. They do not, however, entail that the breach itself is a continuing one. (7) The notion of continuing wrongful acts is common to many national legal systems and owes its origins in international law to Triepel.241 It has been repeatedly referred to by ICJ and by other international tribunals. For example, in the United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran case, the Court referred to “successive and still continuing breaches by Iran of its obligations to the United States under the Vienna Conventions of 1961 and 1963”.242 (8) The consequences of a continuing wrongful act will depend on the context, as well as on the duration of the obligation breached. For example, the “Rainbow Warrior” arbitration involved the failure of France to detain two agents on the French Pacific island of Hao for a period of three years, as required by an agreement between France and New Zealand. The arbitral tribunal referred with approval to the Commission’s draft articles (now amalgamated in article 14) and to the distinction between instantaneous and continuing wrongful acts, and said: Applying this classification to the present case, it is clear that the breach consisting in the failure of returning to Hao the two agents has been not only a material but also a continuous breach. And this classification is not purely theoretical, but, on the contrary, it has practical consequences, since the seriousness of the breach and its prolongation in time cannot fail to have considerable bearing on the establishment of the reparation which is adequate for a violation presenting these two features.243 The tribunal went on to draw further legal consequences from the distinction in terms of the duration of French obligations under the agreement.244 (9) The notion of continuing wrongful acts has also been applied by the European Court of Human Rights to establish its jurisdiction ratione temporis in a series of cases. The issue arises because the Court’s jurisdiction may be limited to events occurring after the respondent State became a party to the Convention or the relevant Protocol and accepted the right of individual petition. Thus, in the Papamichalopoulos case, a seizure of property not involving formal expropriation occurred some eight years before Greece recognized the Court’s competence. The Court held that there was a continuing breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of property under article 1 of the Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, 241 H. Triepel, Völkerrecht und Landesrecht (Leipzig, Hirschfeld, 1899), p. 289. The concept was subsequently taken up in various general studies on State responsibility as well as in works on the interpretation of the formula “situations or facts prior to a given date” used in some declarations of acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of ICJ. 242 United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran (see footnote 59 above), p. 37, para. 80. See also pages 36–37, paras. 78– 79. 243 “Rainbow Warrior” (see footnote 46 above), p. 264, para. 101. 244 Ibid., pp. 265–266, paras. 105–106. But see the separate opinion of Sir Kenneth Keith, ibid., pp. 279–284.