WRIGHT— POWER TO iMEET RESPONSIBILITIES. 243 



the central government or local subdivisions unless plainly outside 

 of- their functions and promptly disavowed. For such acts by 

 inferior administrative officers, the state is responsible only if there 

 is evidence either express, by authorization of a superior officer or of 

 the law, or tacit, by the failure to afford redress or to punish the 

 offending officer, that it sanctioned the act.- Judicial errors are not 

 in themselves torts, though the courts may involve the interna- 

 tional responsibility of the state if they fail to apply international 

 law or deny justice.^ 



The state is also responsible for the authorization of acts 

 violative of international law, or treaty, or unreasonably discrimi- 

 natory, by constitutional provision, legislative act, executive or ad- 

 ministrative decree, or judicial decision of central or local de jure 

 authority.* The promulgation of such constitutional provision, 

 statute, ordinance or decision, if sufficiently concrete to raise a 

 presumption that international law will be violated, is a ground for 

 immediate protest. Other states are not obliged to await the 

 actual commission of an act in violation of their rights.^ 



2. Acts or Omissions of Individuals within State Jurisdiction. 



The state is responsible for the nonfulfillment of contractual 

 obligations made by private individuals or by public officers, ultra 

 vires, and for tortious acts committed in its jurisdiction by private 

 individuals, inferior officers or any officers acting without authority, 

 only in case its courts " deny justice " or executive and administra- 

 tive officers fail to exert " due diligence " in the maintenance of 

 order and enforcement of international law and treaty.^ The de- 

 finition of " denial of justice " involving an investigation of the 

 adequacy of municipal law remedies and the degree of their ob- 

 servance in the particular case and of " due diligence," involving 

 the establishment of criteria applicable to mob violence, insurrec- 



2 Borchard, op. cit., pp. 189-192. 



3 Ibid., p. 195. 

 *Ibid., p. 181. 



^ See Ambassador Bryce to Secretarj' of State Knox, February 27, 1913, 

 Diplomatic History of the Panama Canal, 65th Cong., 2d sess., Sen. Doc, No. 

 474. p. 1 01, supra, sec. 15. 



*5 Borchard, op. cit., pp. 183, 213, 283. As to two meanings of expression 

 " denial of justice," see ibid., p. 335. 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC. VOL LX., Q, MARCH 9, I922. 



