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José Caicedo currently works as an international law specialist for the law firm Dechert LLP in Paris, where he focuses mainly on international investment arbitration. José Caicedo completed his legal education at the Colegio Mayor de Rosario in Bogota with high honours before achieving masters degrees in the philosophy of law and international law. He went on to complete a PhD in international law in Paris at the University of Panthéon Sorbonne, where his doctoral thesis on the responsibility of international organizations and their member States was, in 2006, granted the Suzanne Bastid special distinction for the best doctorial thesis of law in the French speaking countries. In addition to his academic achievements, Dr Caicedo has taught classes in political philosophy and international law at the Colegio Mayor del Rosario and assisted Professor Giorgio Gaja, the special raporteur to the UN International Law Commission on international responsibility of international organizations.
Lecture summary: The participation of States within international organizations has given rise to a series of questions, quite different from the habitual issues of international responsibility. Besides the fact that we are facing two distinct international Subjects with different legal statuses, a fact which in and of itself raises the question of the choice of applicable rules of international responsibility between the member States and the international organizations, there is the problem of the allocation or distribution of responsibility between these different Subjects. Does membership alone, within an international organization, suffice to hold the member State responsible for the acts of the international organization? If that were not to be the case, could one apply, by analogy so to say, such legal figures as the lifting of the corporate veil, or the figure of agency to attribute international responsibility to said member States?
Furthermore, besides the issue itself of attributing responsibility to the member States for the wrongful acts of the international organizations, a diversity of cases exists wherein the member State may be co-responsible with the international organization for the same set of facts. For instance, could the member State be held responsible for its lack of due diligence or supervision when the international organization commits a wrongful act?
This subject also raises the issue extending the international obligations of international organizations to their member States, and the resulting conflict with other international obligations of the member States towards third parties.
These issues have met a spectacularly development in the past ten years. It is obvious now that questions, which not long ago appeared as purely academic, such as holding a member State responsible for its vote within the international organization, or the allocation of responsibility for the acts of the member States when executing resolutions adopted by international organizations, are today raised before international tribunals. Activities as divers as the sanctions imposed by the Security Council or the decision to grant a loan to a State by the World Bank, are now subject to judicial scrutiny. We are therefore living an exciting phase of the formation of a new set of rules of international law in this field as well as a time of uncertainty given the current tendency by practitioners to apply private law principles of liability in international disputes.
The purpose of the lecture will be to expose the principles applicable to the allocation of responsibility between international organizations and their member States and to explain that if the recently codified rules by the International Law Commission may appear as conservative, they in fact respond to the fundamental principles of international responsibility and the law of international organizations.
 Further Links on International Responsibility
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