| This paper seeks to discuss the basic rules of international law concerning the responsibility of States for their internationally wrongful acts. The emphasis is on the secondary rules of State responsibility,that is to say, the general conditions under international law for the State to be considered responsible for wrongful actions or omissions, and the legal consequences which flow　therefrom. The paper does not attempt to define the content of the international obligations,breach of which gives rise to responsibility. This is the function of the primary rules, which involve most of substantive international law, customary and conventional. Given the existence of a primary rule establishing an obligation under international law for a State, and assuming that a question has arisen as to whether that State has complied with the obligation, a number of further issues of a general character arise in the province of the secondary rules of State responsibility. The value of the paper consists in discussing or solving these general character issues.The paper consists of nine chapters.Chapter I discusses general problems on the law of state responsibility,　including　general theoretical problems and general rules in the law of state responsibility. Firstly, State responsibility is the legal consequences caused by international wrongful acts of a state. As legal responsibility, state responsibility does have the character of civil liability, but it does not differentiate between the contractual liability and tortuous liability. Secondly, in the codification and progressive development of the law of state responsibility, the most important　achievement is the draft articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts adopted by the International Law Commission at its fifty-third session (2001).Thirdly, there are a number of general provisions in the law of state responsibility. For instance, these articles do not apply where and to the extent that the conditions for the existence of an internationally wrongful act or the content or implementation of the international responsibility of a State are governed by special rules of international law, the lex specialis will prevail to the extent of any inconsistency; Questions of State responsibility not regulated by treaties, the applicable rules of other origins of international law continue to govern questions concerning the responsibility of a State for an internationally wrongful act；In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the Charter of the United Nations and their obligations under any international agreement on state responsibility, their obligations under the Charter of the United Nations shall prevail. Chapter II discusses three basic principles for state responsibility. The first principle, from which the law of state responsibility as a whole proceeds, is that a breach of international law by a State entails its international responsibility. An internationally wrongful act of a State may consist in one or more actions or omissions or a combination of both. The second principle: There is an internationally wrongful act of a State when a conduct is attributable to the State and the conduct constitutes a breach of an international obligation of the State. That is to say an internationally wrongful act of a State has two elements: Firstly, the conduct in question must be attributable to the State under international law. Secondly, for responsibility to attach to the act of the State, the conduct must constitute a breach of an international legal obligation in force for that State at that time. The question is whether those two necessary conditions are also sufficient. Whether other elements (fault or damages) are required depends on the content and interpretation of the primary obligation and cannot be determined in the abstract. The third principle: the characterization of an act of a State as internationally wrongful is governed by international law. Such character...
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