40 inspectorate must advise the minister of any problems linked to the application of the legislation or matters not covered by it. 190. The mines and quarries inspectors are answerable not to the SEPE but to a quite separate department, the mines inspectorate, composed of engineers. This department monitors compliance with the mines and quarries regulations 1.Its inspectors are empowered to carry out checks on any aspects of undertakings' activities and consult the employees and trade unions. Measures imposed by the inspectors are notified to operators so that they can inform contractors and liaise with them on health and safety matters. THE LAW Preliminary remarks 191. When the admissibility of the complaint was being examined, the Government objected that the matters complained of could not be imputed to the state and that the Committee had no jurisdiction ratione temporis. The Committee stated that these objections would be considered, if necessary, when it assessed the merits of the complaint (decision on admissibility, 10 October 2005, §§14 and 15). 192. Regarding the first point – whether the matters complained of can be imputed to the state – the Committee notes that the DEH, which until its partial privatisation in 2001 was solely answerable to the Greek state, has private law status. However, as a signatory to the Charter, Greece is required to ensure compliance with its undertakings, irrespective of the legal status of the economic agents whose conduct is at issue. Moreover, the DEH's activities are clearly subject to the general legislation on the environment and under Act 2773/1999 on the liberalisation of the Greek electricity market, the Greek Government is required to supervise those activities. Finally, the state still holds a majority of the DEH's shares (51.12% in 2005). 193. Regarding the second point – the Committee's jurisdiction ratione temporis – it notes that the origin of several of the complaints is long-term exposure to air pollution, partly preceding 1998, whose effects have either been felt continuously since lignite mining began in the regions concerned or may only be felt several years after exposure. The Committee considers that under these circumstances, the main question raised by the current complaint is how to make the distinction between performed and continued wrongful acts, bearing in mind the state’s particular duty to take all reasonable measures to ensure that a given event does not occur. In this connection, it notes that Article 14 of the draft articles prepared by the International Law Commission2 on responsibility of states for internationally wrongful acts deals with the extension in time of the breach of an international obligation and states that “the breach of an international obligation requiring a State to prevent a given event occurs when the event occurs and extends over the entire period during which the event continues and remains not in conformity with what is required by that obligation” (§3). In so doing, it is simply endorsing an established legal interpretation of national and international courts. In the present case, the Committee considers that there may be a breach of the obligation to prevent damage arising from air pollution for as long as the pollution continues and the breach may even be 1 See footnote .. Official records of the General Assembly of the United Nations, 56th session, Supplement No. 10, A/56/10. 2