Ahmadou Sadio Diallo

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (1) ◽  
pp. 178-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Stewart ◽  
Mads Andenas

For the first time since the Corfu Channel case of 1949, the International Court of Justice (Court) has awarded damages. The Court did so on June 19, 2012, in its third judgment in the Diallo case, brought by the Republic of Guinea for human rights violations committed against a Guinean citizen by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The judgment was also the Court’s first on damages in a human rights case.

2003 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 782-787
Author(s):  
Malcom D Evans ◽  
Chester Brown

Since 1998, a war has ravaged one of Africa's largest countries, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (‘DRC’). Africa's ‘Great War’ is said to have involved nine national armies and an unknown number of militia groups, and has reportedly claimed more lives than any other in the last four years. Estimates of the death toll range from 3 to 3.5 million. On 28 May 2002, the DRC instituted proceedings before the International Court of Justice (‘the Court’) against Rwanda alleging ‘massive, serious and flagrant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law’, and requested certain provisional measures.2 On 10 July 2002, the Court rejected the DRC’s request for provisional measures, as it considered that it did not have prima facie jurisdiction to determine the merits of the case.3 However, the Court also rejected Rwanda's request that the case be removed from the list, as the Court considered that its lack of jurisdiction was not ‘manifest’.4 This note reviews the history of the conflict and the litigation, before considering the DRC's request for provisional measures and the grounds of jurisdiction upon which it sought to rely. The Order is then analysed, and this note concludes that the Court was right to reject the DRC's request, but it should have gone further and removed the case from the list.


2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Katz Cogan

The International Court of Justice rendered two final decisions on the merits in 2010: in Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay) and Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v. Democratic Republic of the Congo). The Court also issued an advisory opinion in Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo and an order finding Italy’s counterclaim inadmissible in Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy).


2003 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 352-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Crook

During 2002, countries from all regions, especially Africa, resorted to the International Court of Justice; only one of the Court's 2002 judgments involved an OECD countiy. The Court's work during the year also shows the continued importance of boundary issues for states and for the Court.The Court again completed a substantial program of work, resolving three cases with final judgments. In February, it triggered substantial controversy by finding that a Belgian court's warrant for the arrest of the then foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (“Congo”) violated international law. In October, it resolved a complex of boundary disputes between Cameroon and Nigeria, although by year-end Nigeria had not yet implemented the Court's key requirement—withdrawal from the Bakassi Peninsula. In December, comparing sparse effectivités, it concluded that Malaysia, and not Indonesia, had sovereignty over two small disputed islands.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taciano Scheidt Zimmermann

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and to what extent the Article 3(g) of the General Assembly Definition of Aggression (Resolution 3314/1974 XXIX) can be interpreted using the case-law of the International Court of Justice. Three judgments delivered by the Court are analyzed: Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda) and Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro). Special attention is given to the connection between international norms on the use of force and the law of international responsibility, as well as to the meaning and status attributed by the Court to the expressions “sending” and “substantial involvement,” both present in Article 3(g).


2009 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 581-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thordis Ingadottir

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.


2006 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Mathias

In 2005, the International Court of Justice issued three judgments.l In February, the Court upheld an objection to its jurisdiction in Certain Property (Liechtenstein v. Germany). In July, a chamber of the Court issued its judgment on the merits in Frontier Dispute (Benin/Niger). In December, the full Court issued its judgment on the merits in Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda).


2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean D' Aspremont

Any observer of the practice of the International Court of Justice (hereafter the ICJ or the Court) may have noticed the growing tendency of the United Nations judicial body to formulate recommendations to the parties that have appeared before it. Indeed, the Court is more and more inclined to recommend that the parties allay their dispute and alleviate all ensuing human sufferings. This leaning is particularly observable when the Court simultaneously dismisses a request for the indication of provisional measures. For instance, in the recent order rendered by the Court in the case concerning the Armed Activities on the Territory of Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Rwanda), the Court made the following declaration:


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.


2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bodansky ◽  
James Thuo Gathii

Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda). At <http://www.icj-cij.org>.International Court of Justice, December 19, 2005.In its December 19, 2005, judgment in Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo v. Uganda (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Uganda to have engaged in grave violations of the prohibition on the use of force and of its international humanitarian and human rights obligations during its occupation of Congelese territory. The Court also found that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations for its treatment of Ugandan diplomats and also for the destruction of their diplomatic premises and the associated archives and records.The train of events leading to this case originated in May 1997 with President Laurent-Desire Kabila's deposition of Zairean dictator Mobutu-Ssese Seko. Having come to power with Ugandan and Rwandese military assistance, Kabila was unsuccessful in his effort to remove Ugandan and Rwandese troops from the DRC (paras. 48–50). The DRC alleged that in August 1998, Ugandan armed forces invaded (para. 29) and then captured and occupied Congolese towns and territory in defiance of Kabila's decision that Ugandan and Rwandese forces should leave the DRC (para. 29–31). Further, the DRC contended that Uganda recruited, funded, trained, equipped, and supplied armed Congolese groups opposed to the Kabila government (para. 32).


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