Case Analysis: The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in the WHO Nuclear Weapons Case: A Critique

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. F. Amerasinghe
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
World Health ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
Health And Environmental Effects ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Health Organization

The World Health Organization (WHO) had, among other things, been examining and deliberating the hazardous effects to health by the use of nuclear weapons. These discussions culminated in a resolution which requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of the use of nuclear weapons in the following terms: [i]n view of the health and environmental effects, would the use of nuclear weapons by a Stare in war or other armed conflict be a breach of its obligations under international law including the WHO Constitution?

International humanitarian law and nuclear weapons

1996 ◽  
Vol 36 (313) ◽  
pp. 500-502
Author(s):  
The Review
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
World Health ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Health Organization

On 8 July 1996, the International Court of Justice gave its advisory opinion in response to two enquiries as to the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. Whilst the Court did not examine in detail the request put forward by the World Health Organization, it did give very close attention to the question presented by the General Assembly:“Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance permitted under international law?”

The 1996 Judicial Activity of the International Court of Justice

1997 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 554-555
Author(s):  
Peter H. F. Bekker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
World Health ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Oil Platforms ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Maritime Boundary ◽  
Health Organization

This Note summarizes the judicial work of the International Court of Justice during 1996, using the updated General List, pleadings filed, Orders and Judgments given and hearings held at the Peace Palace in The Hague to describe the Court’s current record.During the calendar year 1996, the Court was seized of one new contentious case: Kasikili/Sedudu Island (Botswana/Namibia). In 1996 a total of eleven cases appeared on the General List. Besides the new case referred to, the contentious proceedings before the full Court were Aerial Incident of 3 July 1988 (Iran v. United States), Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain, Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention Arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libya v. United Kingdom) and (Libya v. United States), Oil Platforms (Iran v. United States), Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia), Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary/Slovakia), Fisheries Jurisdiction (Spain v. Canada), and Land and Maritime Boundary (Cameroon v. Nigeria). Advisory proceedings were concluded in Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict (request for an advisory opinion by the World Health Organization) and Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (request for an advisory opinion by the General Assembly of the United Nations).

2 Legal Powers, 2.4 Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion of 8 July 1996, [1996] ICJ Rep 66

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burci Gian Luca ◽  
Quirin Jakob
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
World Health ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization

The International Court of Justice advisory opinion of 8 July 1996 that responded to a request from the World Health Organization contains important guidance on the delimitation of competence and co-ordination of international organizations, in particular those forming part of the UN system. The Court held by eleven votes to three that it did not have jurisdiction to give the advisory opinion ‘which was requested of it’. The opinion marks an important step in the Court’s jurisprudence in that it focusses not on an expansion of competence of international organizations as previous ICJ jurisprudence, but rather on the limits of this competence. The opinion is a succinct reminder of the tension between the goal to effectively and efficiently ‘divide labour’ between the mandates of the UN and the specialized agencies and the relative lack of mechanisms to enforce this division of labour.

The Completeness of International Law and Hamlet's Dilemma

1999 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Current State ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Self Defence

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to examine whether the possibility of a genuine non liquet is ruled out by a so-called ‘closing rule’underlying public international law. The answer to this question largely determines the relevance of the debate on the legality and legitimacy of the pronouncement of a non liquet by an international court. This debate was recently provoked by the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat and Use of Nuclear Weapons. In this opinion, the Court held that it could not definitively conclude whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons was contrary to international law in an extreme circumstance of self-defence in which the survival of a state is at stake. Nevertheless, some authors have argued that, since international law contains a closing rule stating that the absence of a prohibition is equivalent to the existence of a permission (or vice versa), the Court had in fact decided the legality of nuclear weapons. By virtue of this closing rule, the pronouncement of a non liquet would be impossible. In our analysis, we have taken issue with this view and claim that there are no a priori reasons for the acceptance of a closing rule underlying international law. It is possible indeed that a legal system is simply indifferent towards a certain type of conduct. Moreover, even if a closing rule would be assumed, this rule would be of no help in determining the legality or illegality of the threat and use of nuclear weapons, since the Court asserted that the current state of international law and the facts at its disposal were insufficient to enable it to reach a definitive conclusion. Nothing follows from this assertion, except the assurance that international law cannot definitively settle the question of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons: to be permitted or not to be permitted, that is still the question. Hamlet's dilemma precisely.

Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the use of nuclear weapons under international law — A few thoughts on its strengths and weaknesses

1997 ◽  
Vol 37 (316) ◽  
pp. 92-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Mohr
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court

On 8 July 1996, the International Court of Justice finally rendered its Advisory Opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The procedure had been dragging on since the start of the public sittings on 30 October 1995. Several deadlines set by the Court for reaching a decision came and went, ultimately giving rise to the fear that there would be no decisive majority to affirm the basic unlawfulness of the use of nuclear weapons. This would have been a bitter setback for the initiators of the Advisory Opinion proceeding and for the development of international law.

13 Nuclear Weapons

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boothby William H
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Additional Protocol ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Law Of Armed Conflict ◽  
The Law

This chapter analyses how the law of armed conflict applies to the possession and use of nuclear weapons, noting that no law of armed conflict treaty has been adopted which either prohibits or restricts the development, stockpiling, transfer, possession, or use of such weapons, or threats to use nuclear weapons. Equally, there is no law of armed conflict treaty in existence that contains any other kind of provision with particular reference to such weapons. The chapter points out that certain states ratified Additional Protocol 1 on the explicit basis that the new rules introduced by the treaty have no application to nuclear weapons. In a later section the chapter considers the 1996 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion of 8 July 1996, noting the criticism that has been made of the non liquet terms in which the judgment was expressed. In a short concluding section, the prospects for nuclear disarmament are briefly assessed.

The General Assembly's Request for an Advisory Opinion From the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Lailach
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Un General Assembly

On 15 December 1994, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 49/75K by which it decided:to request the International Court of Justice urgently to render its advisory opinion on the following question: ‘Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance permitted under international law?’

The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion in the Nuclear Weapons Cases — A first appraisal

1997 ◽  
Vol 37 (316) ◽  
pp. 103-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. McNeill
Keyword(s):  
World Health ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Advisory Opinions

There were two requests for advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice — the first from the World Health Organization (WHO), and the second from the United Nations General Assembly.

The 1996 Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion and Non Liquet in International Law

1999 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariano J. Aznar-Gomez
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
International Legal Order

Following extensive debate by the great theoreticians of public international law earlier in this century,1 it might seem that the completeness of the international legal order is now a banal issue, which should be remembered only as an academic dispute.2It might have been so had the International Court of Justice not intervened, perhaps unintentionally, in its advisory opinion of 8 July 1996 concerning the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons3 In her dissenting opinion, Judge Rosalyn Higgins argues that “the Court effectively pronounces a non liquet on the key issue on the grounds of uncertainty in the present state of law, and of facts”.4 In her view, the Court thus interrupted a line of case law which, in theory, had endorsed the idea of the completeness of international law and which, in practice, made it unthinkable that an international judge or arbitrator should actually pronounce a non liquet.5

The Opinions of the International Court of Justice on the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons

1997 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Matheson
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
World Health ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Subject ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Advisory Opinions

On July 8, 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) responded to requests by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for advisory opinions on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. These opinions deserve careful attention, and have already been the subject of considerable scholarly commentary.

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