Federica Paddeu

About/Bio

Federica Paddeu is Federica Paddeu is the Derek Bowett Fellow in Law at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. She is the author of Justification and Excuse in International Law: Concept and Theory of General Defences (CUP, 2018).

Recently Published

Dithering, Trickling Down, and Encoding: Concluding Thoughts on the ‘ILC Articles at 20’ Symposium

Twenty years ago, to this day, the ILC’s efforts at clarifying the rules of State responsibility came to an end. On 9 August 2001, the ILC finalised its work, begun just under four decades earlier, of spelling out  ‘the general conditions under international law for the State to be considered responsible for wrongful actions or omissions, and…

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The ILC Articles at 20: Introduction to the Symposium

The Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (Articles), developed by the International Law Commission (ILC), turn 20 this year. On 9 August 2001 – 45 years after the first report by Special Rapporteur Francisco García-Amador on the topic, after 5 Special Rapporteurs and 34 reports by them – the ILC adopted the final text…

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COVID-19 and Defences in the Law of State Responsibility: Part II

In our previous post, we considered whether States could rely on the plea of force majeure in respect of non-performance of international obligations connected to their efforts to contain the COVID-19. We concluded that force majeure might not provide a defence to States since their measures in addressing the spread of the virus were voluntary measures. In this…

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