Case Digest: France v. Mexico (1929) [Caire Claim]

 Public International Law | Act of State Organs

Fact: 

• Caire, a French national, was killed by Mexican soldiers in Mexico after they demanded money from him.

Issue:

• Whether the Mexico has responsibility for actions of individual military personnel, acting without orders or against the wishes of their commanding officers and independently of the needs and aims of the revolution. YES

Held: 

• In approaching the examination of the questions indicated under 4 in the light of the general principles I have just outlined, I should like to make clear first of all that I am interpreting the said principles in accordance with the doctrine of the “objective responsibility” of the States, that is, the responsibility for the acts of the officials or organs of a State, which may devolve upon it even in the absence of any “fault” of its own. It is widely known that theoretical conceptions in this sphere have advanced a great deal in recent times, and that the innovating work of Dionisio Anzilotti in particular has paved the way for new ideas, which no longer rank the responsibility of the State for the acts of its officials as subordinate to the question of the “fault” attaching to the State itself. Without going into the question of whether these new ideas, which are perhaps too absolute, may require some modifications in the direction proposed by Dr. Karl Strupp, I can say that I regard them as perfectly correct in that they tend to impute to the State, in international affairs, the responsibility for all the acts committed by its officials or organs which constitute offences from the point of view of the law of nations, whether the official or organ in question has acted within or exceeded the limits of his competence. “It is generally agreed,” as M. Bourquin has rightly said, “that acts committed by the officials and agent of a State entail the international responsibility of that State, even if the perpetrator did not have specific authorization. This responsibility does not find its justification in general principles — I mean those principles regulating the judicial organization of the State. The act of an official is only judicially established as an act of State if such an act lies within the official’s sphere of competence. The act of an official operating beyond this competence is not an act of State. It should not in principle, therefore, affect the responsibility of the State. If its is accepted in international law that the position is different, it is for reasons peculiar to the mechanism of international life; it is because it is felt that international relations would become too difficult, too complicated and too insecure if foreign States were obliged to take into account the often complex judicial arrangements that regulate competence in the international affairs of a State. From this it is immediately clear that in the hypothesis under consideration the international responsibility of the State is purely objective in character, and that it rests on an idea of guarantee, in which the subjective notion of fault plays no part.
• But in order to be able to admit this so-called objective responsibility of the State for acts committed by its officials or organs outside their competence, they must have acted at least to all appearances as competent officials or organs, or they must have used powers or methods appropriate to their official capacity.
• If the principles stated above are applied to the present case, and if it is taken into account that the perpetrators of the murder of MJ.B. Caire were military personnel occupying the ranks of “mayor” and “capitan primero” aided by a few privates, it is found that the conditions of responsibility formulated above are completely fulfilled. The officers in question, whatever their previous record, consistently conducted themselves as officers in the brigade of the Villista general, Tomas Urbina; in this capacity they began by exacting the remittance of certain sums of money; they continued by having the victim taken to a barracks of the occupying troops; and it was clearly because of the refusal of M. Caire to meet their repeated demands that they finally shot him. Under these circumstances, there remains no doubt that, even if they are to be regarded as having acted outside their competence, which is by no means certain, and even if their superior officers issued a counter-order, these two officers have involved the responsibility of the State, in view of the fact that they acted in their capacity of officers and used the means placed at their disposition by virtue of that capacity.
• On these grounds, I have no hesitation in stating that, in accordance with the most authoritative doctrine supported by numerous arbitral awards, the events of 11 December 1914, which led to the death of M J.-B. Caire, fall within the category of acts for which international responsibility devolves upon the State to which the perpetrators of the injury are amenable.