10 28. Crimes of State take shape, in brief, as especially grave violations of international law entailing an aggravated responsibility (with aggravating circumstances, thus evoking a category of criminal law); the gravity of the violation directly affects the fundamental values of the international community as a whole.37 Critics of the concept of crimes of State, instead of bearing said values in mind, linked that concept to a mistaken analogy with criminal law in the sense that it has under domestic law. 29. As Georges Abi-Saab rightly recalls, this is not what Roberto Ago had in mind when, in 1976, he proposed the concept of international crimes or crimes of State in the renowned Article 19 of the Draft Articles on State Responsibility of the ILC. The distorted analogy with domestic criminal law ignores the specificity of crimes of State in international law, and regrettably minimizes recognition of the fundamental or higher interests of the international community, emergence of jus cogens in the domain of international responsibility of the States, and the need to established an aggravated regime of the international responsibility of the State.38 In addition, the main purpose of this regime is precisely, “to defend the normative integrity of the legal system itself against patterns of behaviour which go against its most fundamental principles and thus undermine its regular functioning and credibility. (...) It can legitimately be feared that setting aside the dual regime of responsibility would be widely perceived as a reversal of the evolution of general international law from a community-oriented system back to a purely intersubjective one.”39 30. Reaction to grave and systematic violations of human rights and of International Humanitarian Law became, in our days, a legitimate concern of the international community as a whole.40 This is called for with even greater strength when the victims are vulnerable and defenseless, and when the structure of public authority is deformed and it is utilized to abridge the inherent rights of the human person. Now when the international community professes certain fundamental and higher values, it is necessary to accept the consequence of establishment of a special regime of aggravated responsibility (associated with crimes of State) insofar as there are abridgments of said values or of the rules that protect them.41 37 . A. Pellet, "Can a State Commit a Crime? Definitely, Yes!", 10 European Journal of International Law (1999) pp. 426-427; C. Tomuschat, "International Crimes by States: An Endangered Species?", in International Law: Theory and Practice - Essays in Honour of Eric Suy (ed. K. Wellens), The Hague, M. Nijhoff, 1998, pp. 253 and 265. 38 . Establishment of said regime is precisely the aim of the aforementioned Article 19 of the ILC’s Draft Articles on State Responsibility; G. Abi-Saab, "The Uses of Article 19", 10 European Journal of International Law (1999) pp. 339-351. 39 . Ibid., pp. 350-351. 40 . A.A. Cançado Trindade, Tratado de Direito Internacional dos Direitos Humanos, volume I, 2d. ed., Porto Alegre/Brasil, S.A. Fabris Ed., 2003, p. 244; A.A. Cançado Trindade, Tratado de Direito Internacional dos Direitos Humanos, volume III, 1st. ed., Porto Alegre/Brasil, S.A. Fabris Ed., 2003, p. 415. 41 . G. Abi-Saab, "The Concept of ‘International Crimes’ and Its Place in Contemporary International Law", in International Crimes of State (eds. J.H.H. Weiler, A. Cassese and M. Spinedi), Berlin, W. de Gruyter, 1989, pp. 144-145.

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