Human Rights Treaty Bodies and the Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
The Icj

Abstract In recent years, the ICJ has had to deal more and more often with alleged violations of major human rights treaties and the respective compromissory clauses contained in such treaties. Yet, the interrelationship between the Court’s treaty-based jurisdiction under such clauses and State complaint mechanisms, as provided for in human rights treaties, has not yet been fully considered and analysed. Moreover, there might also be interlinkages between the ICJ’s contentious jurisdiction under Article 36 (2) of the ICJ Statute and such State complaint procedures.

Human Rights in the International Court of Justice

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROSALYN HIGGINS
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
The Past ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
The Icj ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Rights Issues

In this speech delivered at the conference honouring Professor Dugard, President Higgins discusses various human rights issues that have come before the International Court of Justice, including self-determination, reservations to human rights treaties, the application of human rights instruments to occupied territories, and allegations of genocide by one state against another. President Higgins notes that in the past few decades the ICJ has been joined by regional human rights courts, commissions and treaty monitoring bodies. Similar human rights claims are surfacing in these diverse fora, but the acknowledged expertise of these specialist bodies and the desire to avoid fragmentation provide an impetus for all concerned to seek common solutions on evolving points of law.

II. INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE: QUESTIONS RELATING TO THE OBLIGATION TO EXTRADITE OR PROSECUTE (BELGIUM v SENEGAL) JUDGMENT OF 20 JULY 2012

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 753-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mads Andenas ◽  
Thomas Weatherall
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Universal Jurisdiction ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Icj ◽  
Jus Cogens ◽  
Heads Of State ◽  
Peremptory Norms

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.

II. AVENA AND OTHER MEXICAN NATIONALS {MEXICO v UNITED STATES OF AMERICA), PROVISIONAL MEASURES, ORDER OF 5 FEBRUARY 2003

2004 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 738-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Ghandhi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
Dispute Settlement Procedure ◽  
Rights Issues

The International Court of Justice is not a human rights court but it does hear human rights cases.1This is hardly remarkable. As Professor Ian Brownlie has pointed out ‘[h]uman rights problems occur in specific legal contexts. The issues may arise… within the framework of a standard-setting convention, or within general international law.’2Because human rights treaties normally have their own dispute settlement procedure, the situations in which the International Court of Justice is more likely to have to grapple with human rights issues lie within the realms of general international law or in non-human rights specific treaty provisions, which may, nevertheless, raise such issues. In addition, some human rights treaties, such as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 1948, contain provisions specifically referring disputes to the International Court of Justice.3Thus, it should come as no surprise that the Court has been involved in a number of cases involving human rights questions.

The Subject Matters: The ICJ and Human Rights, Rights of Shareholders, and the Diallo Case

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 607-625
Author(s):  
ANNEMARIEKE VERMEER-KÜNZLI
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Corporate Rights ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Icj ◽  
The Subject

AbstractOn 30 November 2010, the International Court of Justice issued its decision in the merits phase of the Ahmadou Sadio Diallo case. This decision turned on the questions of whether the DRC had violated Mr Diallo's human rights and his rights as a shareholder and manager in two corporations he owned in the DRC. This paper analyses the decision of the Court in the light of the choices it made and the methodology it applied, and demonstrates that both issues raise fundamental questions. The Court's decision on Mr Diallo's human rights is often ambitious to the detriment of clarity, whereas the part of the judgment dealing with corporate rights does not seem to move beyond its 1970 predecessor in Barcelona Traction. While understandable, this is also regrettable and the consequences for individuals doing business and/or residing in foreign countries may be substantial.

The ICJ Armed Activity Case – Reflections on States' Obligation to Investigate and Prosecute Individuals for Serious Human Rights Violations and Grave Breaches of the Geneva Conventions

2009 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 581-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thordis Ingadottir
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
National Level ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

AbstractIn the Armed Activity Case, the International Court of Justice, found Uganda in breach of various international obligations. In establishing the state responsibility of Uganda, the Court concluded that in the Democratic Republic of Congo the country's troops committed, among other offences, grave breaches of international humanitarian law, as well as serious human rights violations, including torture. According to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and human rights treaties, these acts should also entail individual criminal responsibility. Furthermore, states have undertaken an obligation to investigate and prosecute individuals for these heinous acts. However,enforcement of that obligation has always been problematic; states have been very reluctant to prosecute their own forces. And without an effective enforcement mechanism at the international level, states have largely gottenaway with this bad practice. In light of the importance of having a state's responsibility support the enforcement of individual criminal responsibility at the national level, the article briefly reflects on the case's impact on individual criminal responsibility. It addresses the issue in two ways. Firstly, it examines a state's obligation to prosecute individuals as a secondary obligation, i.e., inherent in a state's obligation to make reparations for an international wrongful act. Secondly, it explores a state's obligation to prosecute individuals as a primary obligation, undertaken in the Geneva Conventions and human rights treaties. The article concludes thatdespite the clear obligation of a state to enforce individual criminal responsibility for the acts at hand in the Armed Activity Case, and the rear occurrence of having a case of this nature reaching the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, where the opportunity to address it and enforce it was largely missed. The nature and submissions in other recent cases at the International Court of Justice indicate that in the near future the Court will have a larger role in enforcing states' obligation to investigate and prosecute serious crimes at the national level.

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
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Icj ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Opening Paragraph

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.

The Contribution of the International Court of Justice to the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominika Švarc Pipan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Icj ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Individual Human ◽  
Peace Treaties

Dominika Švarc explores the way in which the interstate International Court of Justice (ICJ) deals with individual human rights and international humanitarian law. She argues that ever since the Interpretation of Peace Treaties case in 1950, the ICJ has taken an increasingly strong role in recognizing, interpreting, and developing these two disciplines. The Court relies on the cooperation with regional human rights courts and global human rights treaty bodies.

Giving Meaning and Effect to Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald L Neuman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

This chapter discusses the multiple roles played by the members of the Human Rights Committee in giving effect to the rights guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It argues that the most important contribution the members make to the human rights project consists in their credible, professional elaboration of those rights, particularly by means of the Committee’s Views and General Comments, as emphasized by the International Court of Justice in the Diallo case. While the Committee members should be open to learning from the insights of other treaty bodies, they should resist urgings toward a simplistic harmonization. The texts and interpretations of other ‘core’ human rights treaties must be used with care in the members’ independent exercise of their own interpretive function.

Balkanizing Jurisdiction: Reflections on Article IX of the Genocide Convention in Croatia v. Serbia

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 893-897 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAYAM AKHAVAN
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Genocide Convention ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
International Instruments ◽  
Fundamental Values

AbstractWhen it first encountered the Genocide Convention in its 1951 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice recognized that the treaty reflected the ‘most elementary principles of morality’. Its provisions were to be read broadly, in light of the Convention's transcendent object and purpose. This expansive approach stands in contrast with the narrow interpretation of Article IX in the recent Judgment in Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia) case. This article is a commentary on the retroactive obligation to punish genocide under the Convention with regard to acts occurring prior to its entry into force for that state. It concludes that the Court's narrow interpretation of its jurisdiction ratione temporis raises wider questions for its contemporary jurisprudence, namely, whether it will interpret human rights treaties enshrining fundamental values any differently than other international instruments.

Is There State Immunity in Cases of War Crimes Committed in the Forum State? On the Decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of 3 February 2012 inJurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy: Greece Intervening)

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 1817-1850 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann-Josef Blanke ◽  
Lara Falkenberg
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
The State ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
State Immunity ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Icj ◽  
Compensation Claims

On 3 February 2012, in a case brought by the Federal Republic of Germany against Italy, the ICJ decided that state immunity protects the state against compensation claims even in cases of extreme violations of human rights. With this ruling, the court established a provisional conclusion to the question of possible exceptions to state immunity in respect of jurisdictional immunity of the state and constraint measures in civil claims. This question has repeatedly arisen in recent years not only in international and European cases, but also in other national cases.

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