Internationellt statsansvar : För upprätthållandet av ett internationellt samhällskontrakt

Sammanfattning: A long time ago, according to Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, humans lived in a state of nature where there was only disorder and war. In the state of nature people lacked rights and a common system of rules to live by. In order to leave the state of nature the people had to gather in communities and give their consent to be governed by one ruler. This ruler had the responsibility to ensure and protect people’s rights as well as secure the existence of common rules to live by, in exchange the people agreed to give up parts of its personal sovereignty. This was called a social contract by both Hobbes and Locke. The world consists of various sovereign states that initially coexisted without common rules. In order to overcome the disorder that arose as a result of the lack of rules the states began to merge into communities and gave their consent to give up parts of their sovereignty for the benefit of international rules that everyone would adhere to. The purpose of this study is to apply the theory of the social contract to an international context in order to examine whether there is an international social contract. Furthermore, it is investigated how the states in the possible international social contract comply with their human rights obligations arising in the community and what international state-responsibility they take when private actors violate the rules agreed on by the states. The study shows that it is possible to talk about an international social contract based on international law. The study also shows that states have an international responsibility to protect human rights and that violations of these can lead to a state being brought to justice. According to international law, states can also be held responsible for what private actors do. States can be held responsible either by attribution of action or failure by the state to comply with its positive obligations to protect human rights. Since human rights violations constitute a violation of the international social contract, the state must, in order not to be thrown back into a state of nature, act to rebuild the protection of the rights and actively work for the realization and dissemination of human rights. The legitimacy of the international social contract is based on state consent to participate and for states to fulfill their obligations. One of these obligations is to take responsibility for other´s action when called for. Keywords: social contract, international law, human rights, consent, state responsibility, private actors.