Arab Organization for Industrialization and others v Westland Helicopters Ltd, Swiss Federal Supreme Court (First Civil Court), 19 July 1988, 80 ILR 652

The present case deals with the responsibility of states for the acts of an international organization. The decision by the Federal Supreme Court forms part of an appeal brought by the Arab Republic of Egypt (ARE) against an earlier arbitral award against the ARE and five other respondents. In that arbitral award, the Tribunal had held that the member states of the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI), including the ARE, had agreed to arbitration by virtue of the AOI constitution. In the present case, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court partly reversed this award by upholding the separate legal personality of the AOI. As a result, AOI member states, in particular the appealing ARE, could not be subjected to international arbitration. The Swiss Federal Supreme Court’s decision thus set the stage for the contemporary view on the question of the responsibility of member states of international organizations: due to the separate legal personality of an international organization, its member states cannot be held responsible for acts of the organization based on their membership alone.