CLAT 2020 PG

Read the following passage carefully and then answer the accompanying questions employing the concepts provided in the passage:

The Principles of state responsibility dictate that states are accountable for breaches of International Law. Such breaches of treaty or customary international law enable the injured state to maintain a claim against the violating state, whether by way of diplomatic action or by way of recourse to international mechanisms where such are in place with regard to subject matter in issue. Recourse to International Arbitration or to the International Court of Justice is also possible provided the necessary jurisdictional basis has been established. Customary International Law imposes several important fundamental obligations upon the States in the area of environmental protection. The view that the International law supports an approach predicated upon absolute territorial sovereignty, so that a state could do as it liked irrespective of the consequences upon other states has long been discredited. The basic duty upon states is not so to act as to injure the rights of other states. This duty has evolved partly out of the regime concerned with international waterways. In the [1] case, the Permanent Court of International Justice noted that ‗this community of interest in a navigable river becomes the basis of common legal right, the essential features of which are the perfect equality of all riparian states in the use of the whole course of the river and the exclusion of any preferential privileges of any riparian state in relation to others.‘. But the principle is of far wide application. It was held in [2] case that the concept of territorial sovereignty incorporated an obligation to protect within the territory the rights of other states. It has now been established that it was an obligation of every state to not to allow knowingly its territory to be used for acts contrary to the rights of other states. This judicial approach has now been widely reaffirmed in international instruments. Article [3] of the Law of Sea Convention, 1982 provides that ‗states shall take all measures necessary to ensure that activities under their jurisdiction and control are so conducted as not to cause damage by pollution to other states and their environment.‘ It is sometimes argued that the appropriate standard for the conduct of states in this field is that of strict liability. In other words, states are under an absolute obligation to prevent pollution and are thus liable for its effects irrespective of fault.