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10 Mich. J. Int'l L. 231 (1989)
Reflections on State Responsibility for Violations of Explicit Protectorate, Mandate, and Trusteeship Obligations

handle is hein.journals/mjil10 and id is 245 raw text is: REFLECTIONS ON STATE RESPONSIBILITY FOR VIOLATIONS OF EXPLICIT PROTECTORATE, MANDATE, AND TRUSTEESHIP OBLIGATIONS W Michael Reisman * William Bishop's high standards of personal ethics, factual accu- racy and scrupulous honesty marked his relationships with his col- leagues, and his scholarly work. I knew him first through his written work and later as a colleague on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law. As a person, he was unfailingly courte- ous (it is impossible to imagine him otherwise); as a scholar, he was rigorous and thorough; as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal, he was de- manding and discriminating, but always tolerant and fair. He ac- cepted my first article. Because he was not a member of the New Haven School, I awaited his editorial comments with a certain trepida- tion - needlessly. His comments were pertinent and challenging. The result was a better article, a transformation he seemed to effect in everything he did. He was a superior man. Given his personality and personal principles, it was not surprising that Professor Bishop should have chosen the area of State Responsi- bility as his field of special concentration. Anyone who dealt with him encountered a person who appreciated the benefits of civil exchange and who comported himself in all exchanges according to high stan- dards. Those two impulses, of course, animate State Responsibility. I should like, in his memory, to explore in a most tentative way some possible applications of the law of State Responsibility for violations of undertakings by stronger states to weaker states during the colonial period. The general question of responsibility for colonialism per se is ex- tremely complex. On the one hand, the injuries done to people sub- jected to colonization were not characterized as delictual in terms of the law and morality prevailing at the time. Hence retroactive ascrip- tion of responsibility runs the danger of intellectual anachronism, no less than a violation of fundamental legal principles. On the other * Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence, Yale Law School. I acknowledge with gratitude the comments and criticisms of my colleague, Myres S. McDougal. This paper has also benefitted from discussions with Brian D. Lepard, J.D. '89 Yale, who has been working on the same sub- ject, and from the assistance of Alison Zieve.

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