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Third, this definition suggests that the players in the game of countermeasures can only be states. It is quite possible to imagine that an international organization could resort to countermeasures against another organization or a state; arguably, such acts could become an increased possibility with the rising level of rights and obligations that international organizations are given. Such unilateral measures raise a number of issues that might distract the analysis from its core issues. Therefore, unilateral measures of international organizations are kept out of the discussion in this book. Also, the classical concept of reprisals, which is, in a way, the mother of the countermeasures doctrine,2 permitted private individuals who were duly authorized by the injured state to resort to countermeasures against other states on the injured state’s behalf. However, these types of reprisals are no longer a part of contemporary law on countermeasures. See further discussion on this issue in part II, chapter 8.
Fourth, countermeasures have to comply with the principle of proportionality. Although legal authors and international jurisprudence do not give precise guidelines on this issue, the principle generally requires countermeasures to be proportionate to the following: the harm caused by the internationally wrongful act, the legal principles that the wrongful act infringes, and the amount of effort needed to acquire the legitimate objectives of the countermeasures, that is, to induce the offending state to comply with its international obligation and/or pay reparation. The principle of proportionality of countermeasures will be discussed further in part II, chapter 10.
According to this preliminary discussion, countermeasures are measures that would be in violation of an international obligation without special legal justification. An example of countermeasures in the environmental field is if an injured state freezes assets belonging to an offending state because of environmental harm the latter caused the former by a violation of its international environmental obligations. Another example is trade restrictions that violate a bilateral trade agreement or World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations taken in response to similar violations against environmental rights.