4 Chi J Intl L 83
Derek Jinks

This Article examines the question of under what circumstances should international law impute the acts of private armed groups to states. The author differentiates between primary and secondary legal obligations under international law. The legal response to September 11 strongly suggests that the scope of state liability for private conduct has expanded. However, this expansion has occurred not through the refashioning any “primary rules” defining the content of state obligations, but rather by relaxing the “secondary rules” defining state responsibility for breaches of any such obligation. The author argues that the formal characterization of terrorist acts as de facto “state action” risks overapplication and underapplication of the relevant primary rules. As such, the Article suggests that international law should address state support for terror as a breach of primary legal obligations, and that states should work to build a durable consensus about the core of conduct that may be fairly described as terrorist activity.