scholarly journals Palestine Brings a Case Against the United States in the International Court of Justice at a Fraught Time for U.S.-Palestinian Relations

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-149

While Palestine considers itself a state, the United States does not currently recognize it as such. The relationship between the two has continued to deteriorate following the December 2017 announcement that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move its embassy there. Alleging that the embassy relocation violates international law, Palestine brought a case against the United States in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in September of 2018. The United States reacted by announcing its withdrawal from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes (Optional Protocol). Also in the fall of 2018, the Trump administration closed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington, curtailed its own Palestinian-focused mission in Jerusalem, and sharply cut U.S. funding focused on Palestinian interests.

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-141

In October of 2018, the Trump administration announced that the United States would withdraw from four international agreements. On October 3, 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would withdraw from the Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights with Iran. Later that day, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the United States was also withdrawing from the Optional Protocol to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR). Both withdrawals were triggered by pending International Court of Justice (ICJ) cases grounded in these treaties that were recently brought against the United States. Two weeks later, in an escalation of the ongoing trade dispute with China, the United States gave notice of withdrawal from the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the international body charged with overseeing the international mailing system. Finally, on October 22, 2018, President Trump announced that the United States would be terminating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia. Unlike other withdrawals undertaken by the Trump administration, this latest round involved three Article II treaties to which the Senate had provided its advice and consent. In addition, the international commitments withdrawn from in this round were long-standing ones, with U.S. participation in the UPU going back as far as 1875.


2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  

In its judgement from June 27, 2001, in the LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States of America), the International Court of Justice made a number of watershed rulings: (a) The Court established that Article 36(1) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations creates individual rights for foreign nationals abroad, and not just rights protecting the interests of states that are a party to the Convention; (b) The Court ruled that, beyond the undisputed failure on the part of the U.S. to take the measures required by the Convention, the application of an American provision of criminal procedure in the LaGrand brothers' cases (a provision that prevented the domestic courts from reviewing the implications of the Convention violation admitted by the Americans) itself constituted a violation of Article 36(2) of the Convention; (c) The Court, as a remedy in the case of future violations of the Convention, ordered the United States to provide a procedure for the review and reconsideration of convictions secured in circumstances in which the obligations of the Convention had not been observed; and (d) as a separate matter the Court ruled that its provisional orders, issued pursuant to Article 41 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, have binding effect.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER J. LE MON

Following the judgment of the International Court of Justice in the Avena case, US courts have had a mixed record in applying the decision domestically. In this article, I examine the treatment by US courts of claims by criminal defendants alleging Vienna Convention violations, subsequent to the Avena judgment. First, I discuss the two limited decisions so far taken by the US Supreme Court regarding the Vienna Convention, and briefly explain several of the judicially-created rules that have prevented most US courts from reaching the merits of Vienna Convention claims. Next, I analyse the ICJ judgment in the LaGrand case, and provide an overview of the reception of that case by the US courts. After a summary of the Avena decision, I turn to the latest cases in which Vienna Convention claims based on Avena have been raised in US courts, focusing on the two most important decisions, and examining their contradictory rulings. As the US Supreme Court has now decided to hear an appeal in one of these cases, I conclude by arguing that the Supreme Court should take the opportunity to elucidate the role of the International Court of Justice in US law when the United States has consented to binding treaty interpretation by that court.


2021 ◽  
Vol 191 ◽  
pp. 219-373

International Court of Justice — Provisional measures — Diplomatic relations — Immunity of State officials and State property — Prima facie jurisdiction — United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, 2000 (“Palermo Convention”) — Optional Protocol to Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes, 1961 — Plausibility — Article 22 of Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 — Inviolability of diplomatic premises — Whether building located at 42 Avenue Foch could plausibly be regarded as housing diplomatic mission of Equatorial Guinea — Irreparable prejudice — Urgency — Link between provisional measures requested and rights sought to be protected International Court of Justice — Jurisdiction — Palermo Convention — Whether references to customary international law incorporate those rules of customary law into the Convention — Sovereign equality of States — Whether dispute regarding alleged breach of customary law principle within jurisdiction of the Court under the Palermo Convention — Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Optional Protocol — Dispute regarding status of buildings claimed as premises of diplomatic mission International Court of Justice — Admissibility — Abuse of process — Abuse of rights — Whether reasons not to exercise jurisdiction under Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations — Matter for preliminary objections — Whether exceptional circumstances existing — Whether Application inadmissible on that basis — Abuse of rights — Whether ground of inadmissibility when establishment of rights claimed properly a matter for merits Treaties — Palermo Convention — Subject matter of dispute — Procedural preconditions to Court’s jurisdiction under Article 35(2) of Palermo Convention — Scope of jurisdiction ratione materiae under Palermo Convention — Article 4 of Palermo Convention — Incorporation of customary rules of international law on State immunity by reference to principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity and non-intervention in internal affairs of other States — Alleged overextension of jurisdiction by France in implementing provisions of Palermo Convention 220Diplomatic relations — Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 — Optional Protocol to Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes, 1961 — Subject matter of dispute — Procedural preconditions to Court’s jurisdiction under Articles II and III of Optional Protocol — Meaning of “premises of the mission” under Article 1(i) of Vienna Convention — Whether definition of “premises of the mission” falling within scope ratione materiae of Vienna Convention — Whether a dispute concerning inviolability of the building at 42 Avenue Foch State immunity — Jurisdictional immunity — Head of State immunity — Vice-President of State accused of misappropriation of funds and money laundering by authorities of another State — Whether entitled to immunity — Basis for any claim to immunity — Customary international law — Whether incorporated into Palermo Convention


1946 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 699-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis O. Wilcox

On August 2, 1946, the United States Senate approved the Morse resolution by the overwhelming vote of 62-2, thereby giving its advice and consent to the acceptance on the part of the United States of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. It was the same Senate which, just one year and one week earlier, had cast a vote of 89-2 in favor of the United Nations Charter. On August 26 Herschel Johnson, acting United States representative on the Security Council, deposited President Truman’s declaration of adherence with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. At long last the United States assumed far-reaching obligations to submit its legal disputes to an international court.


1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Franck

The decision of the International Court of Justice in the case between Nicaragua and the United States brims with important procedural and substantive implications for the future of law and adjudication in disputes between states.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Dingle

AbstractThis is a further contribution to the Squire Law Library Eminent Scholars Archive by Lesley Dingle. It is based on interviews with Stephen Schwebel about his distinguished career as an international jurist in the United States and at the International Court of Justice.


2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 450-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Crook

During 2004 the International Court of Justice decided three important matters. In March the Court found that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations with respect to a number of Mexican nationals sentenced to death in U.S. state court proceedings. In a much-noted advisory opinion, the Court concluded in July that Israel's construction of a security wall or fence in occupied Palestinian territory violated international law. And in December it found that it did not have jurisdiction over Serbia and Montenegro's claims against eight NATO countries regarding NATO's 1999 bombing campaign aimed at halting the conflict in Kosovo. In other developments, the Court heard and had under deliberation Germany's preliminary objections to Liechtenstein's suit regarding certain property of Crown Prince Adam. Finally, Judge Gilbert Guillaume, a member of the Court since 1987 and its former president, announced that he would resign in February 2005.


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