Some contemporary states are morally culpable for historically distant wrongs. But which states for which wrongs? The answer is not obvious, due to secessions, unions, and the formation of new states in the time since the wrongs occurred. This paper develops a framework for answering the question. The argument begins by outlining a picture of states’ agency on which states’ culpability is distinct from the culpability of states’ members. It then outlines, and rejects, a plausible-seeming answer to our question: that culpability transmits from a past state’s action to a present state just if the two states share a numerical identity, for example as determined by international law. I advocate a different answer: culpability transmits from a past action to a present state to the extent that the present state ‘descends from’ the aspects of the past state that underpinned the past action. One potential upshot is that some present-day settler-colonies (such as Australia) are culpable for the centuries-ago invasion of their lands by European powers—even though these states did not perform these invasions and indeed did not exist at the time.

一些当代国家在道义上对历史上遥远的错误负有责任。但哪个国家犯了哪些错误呢？由于错误发生以来的分裂、联盟和新国家的形成，答案并不明显。本文开发了一个回答这个问题的框架。论证首先概述了国家机构的图景，在该图景中，国家的罪责与国家成员的罪责不同。然后，它概述并拒绝了对我们问题的一个看似合理的答案：只要两个国家共享数字身份（例如由国际法确定的数字身份），罪责就会从过去国家的行为转移到现在的国家。我主张一个不同的答案：罪责从过去的行为转移到现在的状态，因为当前的状态“源自”支撑过去行为的过去状态的各个方面。一个潜在的结果是，一些当今的定居者殖民地（例如澳大利亚）对几个世纪前欧洲列强入侵其土地负有责任——尽管这些国家没有实施这些入侵，而且当时并不存在。