The Lateral Boundaries of the Continental Shelf and the Judgment of the International Court of Justice in the North Sea Continental Shelf Cases

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 562-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Etienne Grisel
Keyword(s):  
Continental Shelf ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Exclusive Jurisdiction ◽  
The North ◽  
Sea Bottom ◽  
International Court ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Recent Origin

A rule of customary international law of recent origin has conferred sovereign rights over the continental shelf to individual states for the limited purposes of exploration and exploitation. The attribution of such exclusive jurisdiction required the delimitation of boundaries between the submarine areas appertaining to various littoral states. The importance of such partition of the seabed and subsoil is self-evident, but two points do call for comment. First, since the shelf may be considerably extended in the future according to the criterion of exploitability, the method now adopted will have a constantly growing significance. Second, the acquisition of the sea bottom by coastal nations has created inequalities between them, depending on their relative degree of technical development as well as on their geographical circumstances. The drawing of boundaries separating their respective shelves can aggravate or diminish these inequalities.

The North Sea Continental Shelf Cases—A Critique

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Friedmann
Keyword(s):  
Continental Shelf ◽  
International Law ◽  
North Sea ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
New Developments ◽  
The North ◽  
Continental Shelves ◽  
International Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
The North Sea

The decision of the International Court of Justice in the North Sea Continental Shelf Cases is surely one of the most interesting as well as debatable decisions in the history of the Court. It deals with certain aspects of one of the most important new developments of international law, the doctrine of the Continental Shelf. It also touches on some basic problems of the sources of international law. Among the matters dealt with, in greater or lesser detail, by the Court are the formation of custom in contemporary conditions, the effect of custom upon treaty and, in turn, the possible translation of principles formulated in a multilateral treaty, into universal custom. Above all, the Court was compelled to formulate certain principles of general equity as applicable to the delimitation of the continental shelves between three of the coastal states of the North Sea. It is this attempt of the Court to formulate the general principles of equity applicable to a fair allocation of the resources of the Continental Shelf between neighbors with which the present article will be mainly concerned.

3 The Third Element

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
d'Aspremont Jean
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
North Sea ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The Third ◽  
The North ◽  
International Court ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Constitutive Element

This chapter focuses on the norm-creating character of the standard whose customary status is tested as another possible constitutive element of customary international law. It examines the third constitutive element of customary international law, which is the common recognition by international law of the enormous definitional powers to the International Court of Justice when it comes to the custom-identification criteria. It also explores the discursive performance that consists of the constant turning of a blind eye to a specific claim made by the Court in the 1969 North Sea Continental Shelve. The chapter highlights the 1969 North Sea Continental Shelf wherein the Court confirmed the dualistic approach and the consciousness of having a duty may be in order to offer an articulate definition of opinio juris for the first time. It argues that the requirement that the standard whose customary status is tested must be norm-creating as it was prescribed by the Court in the North Sea Continental Shelfcase.

Plausibility in the Provisional Measures Jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 641-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
MASSIMO LANDO
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court

AbstractIn 2009, the International Court of Justice introduced plausibility as a requirement for indicating provisional measures under Article 41 of its Statute. Upon its introduction, plausibility was conceived as a test to establish that the rights asserted by applicant states might exist under international law. However, the Court subsequently developed the plausibility test into a higher standard, which requires the Court also to assess that the alleged conduct of the respondent state might breach that applicant state's asserted rights. This development has important implications for provisional measures proceedings before the Court. First, one could distinguish two aspects of plausibility, legal and factual. Second, plausibility has different functions in requests for provisional measures depending on whether the applicant state asserts rights arising under a treaty or under customary international law. Third, the Court's enquiry into plausibility could overlap with the enquiry into prima facie jurisdiction ratione materiae, although these two requirements conceivably entail different thresholds. Fourth, plausibility in provisional measures indicated in interpretation proceedings could be seen to be different from plausibility in provisional measures indicated in ordinary contentious proceedings.

scholarly journals Criminal Proceedings Against Albers

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (3) ◽  
pp. 632-638
Author(s):  
Filippo Fontanelli
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Law ◽  
World War ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Sovereign Immunity ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Court Of Appeal

In August 2012, the First Criminal Division of the Court of Cassation (Supreme Court or Court), the highest Italian domestic court, issued a judgment upholding Germany’s sovereign immunity from civil claims brought by Italian war crime victims against Paul Albers and eight others in the Italian courts (Albers). In so doing, the Court overruled its own earlier decisions and also reversed the judgment of April 20, 2011, by the Italian Military Court of Appeal (Military Court), which had upheld such claims relating to war crimes committed by German forces in Italy during World War II. With this ruling, the Court of Cassation put an end to its decade long effort to find an exception to the well-known rule of customary international law providing for sovereign immunity from foreign civil jurisdiction for actsjure imperii. Thisrevirementresulted from the Court’s decision to give effect to the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) inGermany v. Italy.

scholarly journals States’ Mouthpieces or Independent Practitioners? The Role of Counsel before the ICJ from the Perspective of the Legal Value of their Oral Pleadings

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-76
Author(s):  
Marco Longobardo
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The Icj ◽  
Treaty Interpretation

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.

The LOSC as a Package Deal and Its Implications for Determination of Customary International Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 704-739
Author(s):  
Xuexia Liao
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
Not Given ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
United Nations Convention

Abstract This article revisits the package deal nature of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) and its implications for determining customary international law. A survey of the case law illustrates that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has not given particular weight to the fact that the LOSC was negotiated and accepted as a package deal. Nevertheless, the ICJ’s declaration that Article 121, paragraph 3 of the LOSC is a customary rule tends to be based on a ‘package deal approach’, which focuses on the textual and logical links between the paragraphs that manifest an ‘indivisible régime’. By exploring the difficulties of determining the customary status of Article 76(2)–(7) concerning the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles, which may arise in the pending Nicaragua v. Colombia II case, this article calls for a cautious attitude towards determination of customary rules from the LOSC.

France—immunity from taxation under ICJ Statute—effect of customary international law in French administrative courts

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 764-765
Author(s):  
Bernard H. Oxman ◽  
Stefan A. Riesenfeld
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Income Taxes ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Retirement Pension ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Droit International ◽  
Council Of State ◽  
Court Of Appeal

In Re Aquarone. 101 Revue Générale de Droit International Public 838 (1997).Conseil d'Etat (Assemblée), June 6, 1997.In this case, the French Council of State, sitting in its most authoritative formation, had to pass on a petition by Stanislav Aquarone for review of a judgment of the administrative court of appeal of Lyon, dismissing his request for annulment of die imposition by France of income taxes on his retirement pension for the years 1981-1986, paid by the United Nations. In a carefully crafted opinion, the highest administrative court of France rejected die petition and die claim of immunity from taxation of his retirement pay by Aquarone, a former Registrar of the International Court of Justice and an Australian national now living in Gordes, France.

Comparative International Law Within, Not Against, International Law: Lessons from the International Law Commission

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (3) ◽  
pp. 498-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Forteau
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
International Court ◽  
Degree Of Separation ◽  
The One ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
The Relationship

Public international law and comparative law have so far been regarded as largely distinct fields, with little to no overlap between them. The degree of separation between the two disciplines is rendered in particularly stark relief by the absence in practice or scholarship of any real inquiry into the relationship between comparative law on the one hand and customary international law and general principles of international law on the other. Some eminent international lawyers go so far as to claim that it would be both unnecessary and unrealistic to have recourse to comparative law in the context of the identification of customary international law and general principles of law, pointing to the case law of the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Court of Justice, which, according to them, “show[s] a clear disinclination towards the use of the comparative method.”

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