II. INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE, CASE CONCERNING AHMADOU SADIO DIALLO (REPUBLIC OF GUINEA V DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO) JUDGEMENT OF 30 NOVEMBER 2010

2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 810-819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mads Andenas

This is the first time in its history, to the best of my knowledge, that the International Court of Justice has established violations of the two human rights treaties at issue, together, namely, at universal level, the 1966 UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and, at regional level, the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, both in the framework of the universality of human rights.This is the opening paragraph of Judge Cançado Trindade's Separate Opinion in the Diallo case. The ICJ's judgment is a remarkable decision contributing to the widening and deepening of international law and has consequences for several fundamental questions, including the role of the ICJ and international law in making human rights effective, erga omnes and jus cogens rules, customary law, evidence, and several substantive rules. In bringing the transformation of international law one step further, the Diallo judgment develops the ICJ as ‘the principal judicial organ of the United Nations’1 at the top of an open international law system. To achieve this, the Court had to overcome a series of jurisdictional and procedural hurdles.2 All the permanent judges of the ICJ agreed that Congo had violated the prohibition on arbitrary detention and expulsion and that the violations gave rise to a right of compensation. The ICJ's use of sources from other international and regional bodies as sources of authority, indicates solutions to fragmentation problems.

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 753-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mads Andenas ◽  
Thomas Weatherall

This case1 marks the first pronouncement by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the obligation to extradite or prosecute (aut dedere aut judicare) in international law. It is the second contentious case in which the ICJ has held the defendant country in breach of its obligations under a human rights convention. The ICJ both added to the corpus of norms it has formally recognized as peremptory norms (jus cogens) and also reinforced the principle that former heads of state are subject to universal jurisdiction for grave violations of international law.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 319-323
Author(s):  
Anthony Carty

B.S. Chimni's study of customary international law (CIL) is a review of its role both as a supporter of the existing global capitalist order and as a potential instrument to challenge that order in favor of a postmodern deliberative reasoning as the shaper of a new CIL. It has been my view, since the The Decay of International Law? in 1986, that general customary international law is not an intelligible concept and not actually used in practice to demonstrate empirically the existence of any rule of law. I follow Hans Morgenthau, who wrote in 1940 in the American Journal of International Law that the manner in which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) uses this concept is to decide what it likes and call it customary law. I reiterated this view in my review of the ICJ in the first edition of my Philosophy of International Law in 2007. While Chimni quotes my writings on general custom frequently and very positively in his article, this is always to support a progressive customary law and never to do what I would propose, which is to make a complete break with CIL in favor of an independent approach to the problems it is supposed to answer.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Naguib Abdul Malik

This article demonstrates that the cases decided by the ICJ and the arbitration tribunals are judge made law and are not derived from the rules of customary law. Judge made law, as enunciated by the ICJ and the arbitration tribunals are very general and imprecise. The decisions made by the ICJ and the arbitration tribunals beget unpredictability or unexpected results. Normally, state parties are not happy with the decision made by the ICJ and the arbitration tribunals and the discontented states are unable to take any actions as state parties need to comply with the decision of the ICJ. In this Article, two (2) cases, one in South America and the other one in Africa, were discussed in detail. The outcome of these two (2) cases is not palatable to some state parties. Since the decisions are not predictable and the outcome is not palatable to some state parties, this Article looks at possible solutions which are being offered in International Islamic Law (Siyar). Keywords: Islamic International Law (Siyar), International Court of Justice (ICJ), Judge Made Law, Maritime Boundary Delimitations, Unpredictable Results, The Principle of Joint Administration, The Principle of Joint Development.


2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 79-82
Author(s):  
Maria Flores

I first became involved with international law while I was at university. After graduating, I decided to teach public international law. As an undergraduate, I particularly enjoyed this branch of study. I was attracted to it because it helped me to understand the problems, challenges, and breakthroughs in the field of international relations on a global scale. Therefore, after facing a competitive entry process, I joined the international law department of the Universidad de la República. It was a small department, but the university had produced some well-known scholars like Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga, who became a judge at the International Court of Justice, and Hector Gross Espiell, who served as a judge at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-76
Author(s):  
Marco Longobardo

Abstract This article explores the role of counsel before the International Court of Justice, taking into account their tasks under the Statute of the Court and the legal value of their pleadings in international law. Pleadings of counsel constitute State practice for the formation of customary international law and treaty interpretation, and they are attributable to the litigating State under the law on State responsibility. Accordingly, in principle, counsel present the views of the litigating State, which in practice approves in advance the pleadings. This consideration is relevant in discussing the role of counsel assisting States in politically sensitive cases, where there is no necessary correspondence between the views of the States and those of their counsel. Especially when less powerful States are parties to the relevant disputes, the availability of competent counsel in politically sensitive cases should not be discouraged since it advances the legitimacy of the international judicial function.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-330
Author(s):  
GEOFFREY GORDON

AbstractTraditional conceptions of the international community have come under stress in a time of expanding international public order. Various initiatives purport to observe a reconceived international community from a variety of perspectives: transnational, administrative, pluralist, constitutional, etc. The perspectives on this changing dynamic evidenced by the International Court of Justice, however, have been largely neglected. But as the principal judicial institution tasked with representing the diversity of legal perspectives in the world, the Court represents an important forum by which to understand the changing appreciation of international community. While decisions of the Court have been restrained, an active discourse has been carried forward among individual judges. I look at part of that discourse, organized around one perspective, which I refer to as innate cosmopolitanism, introduced to the forum of the ICJ by the opinions of Judge Álvarez. The innate cosmopolitan perspective reflects an idea of the international community as an autonomous collectivity, enjoying a will, interests, or ends of its own, independent of constituent states. The application of that perspective under international law is put most to test in matters of international security, in particular where the interest in a discrete, global public order runs up against the right to self-defence vested in states. The innate cosmopolitan perspective has not, in these cases, achieved a controlling position – but, over time, it has been part of a dialectical process showing a change in the appreciation of international community before the Court, and a changing perception from the bench of the role of the Court in that community.


Author(s):  
Ingo Venzke

This chapter investigates the role of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) during the battle for international law circa the years of 1955–1975. It first draws attention to newly independent states that saw the Court in its role of reinforcing international law’s colonial imprints. The chapter then focuses on the Court’s captivating highpoint during the battle for international law: its 1962 and 1966 Judgments in South West Africa, and the jarring 1966 decision which, in the eyes of many states, presented the ICJ as a ‘white man’s court’ in a white man’s world. The chapter then shows the effects of the 1966 decision in judicial elections and the quest to change the composition of the bench. Finally, the chapter argues that the present inquiry serves as a vivid reminder that international law and its institutions are the product of a veritable struggle, then as now.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 867-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Muharremi

On 22 July 2010, the International Court of Justice (hereinafter the “ICJ”) delivered its advisory opinion on the accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo. The ICJ concluded that the declaration of independence dated 17 February 2008 did not violate any applicable rule of international law consisting of general international law, UNSC resolution 1244 (1999) (hereinafter the “Resolution 1244”) and the Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government in Kosovo (hereinafter the “Constitutional Framework”). The ICJ delivered the advisory opinion in response to a question set out in resolution 63/3 dated 8 October 2008 of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization (hereinafter the “General Assembly”), which asked if “the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo is in accordance with international law.”


1983 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 338-340
Author(s):  
Jack M. Goldklang

On December 17, 1982, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution supporting an expansion of the advisory opinion jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. The resolution (H.R. Con. Res. 86) urges the President to explore the appropriateness of establishing a United Nations committee to seek advisory opinions from the ICJ. The committee would act when asked by a national court seeking advice regarding any international law question under the national court’s jurisdiction.


Author(s):  
Lindsay Moir

This chapter examines the problems that could arise when a state invokes self-defence to justify action against terrorist groups in another state. It first considers indirect armed attack against armed groups and the controversy surrounding the use of self-defence where armed groups are controlled by a foreign state, with particular reference to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) jurisprudence. It then discusses the possibility that an armed attack could occur, permitting a forcible response in the context of international law, without attribution to a state by citing the Nicaragua case in which the ICJ pronounced that self-defence is permissible against a host state in effective control of an armed group. The chapter also looks at the case of Afghanistan and its relationship to Al Qaeda as an example of a state’s claims of self-defence against terrorism.


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