Chapter 10 Peace Through International Adjudication: The Permanent Court of International Justice and the Post-War Order

Abstract: The concept of international law underlying the Versailles Peace Treaty is marked by a complex and ambivalent combination of references to just peace and the use of the legal form. This article analyses the concept of law and the use of legal techniques and institutions in the Paris settlement, and connects it to various contemporaneous strands of ‘legalism' and to the transformation from (classical) nineteenth-century to (modern) twentieth-century international law. In a second step, the article turns to how the ambivalent legalism in the Versailles Peace Treaty impacted on the respective case law of the Permanent Court and how this case law connects to ‘modern' approaches to international law. While, in substance, the cases involving the Versailles Peace Treaty raised issues of both post-war settlement and international organisation, in doctrinal terms, the Court tentatively developed a concept of international law that squares with modern approaches. This can be demonstrated by examination of the case law, which contributed to the law of international organisations, redefined sovereignty, and developed the humanitarian dimension of international law.

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The Broken Path to Reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Legacies of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198862956.003.0031 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 571-582

Author(s):

Rosa Aloisi

Keyword(s):

Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽

International Criminal ◽

International Criminal Tribunal ◽

International Justice ◽

Local Authorities ◽

The Balkans ◽

Divided Society ◽

Post War ◽

The Right ◽

Vivid Description

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has delivered judgments adjudicating some of the most heinous crimes committed in the Balkans. As the Tribunal’s work comes to an end, judges leave behind a ‘memorial of words’ providing a vivid description of events and sites of atrocities. However, today local authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) use the same places where crimes were committed as a political tool of denial and battleground of ethnic divisions. This chapter assesses the tensions between the truth recounted by the ICTY and the construction of the local collective memory through an analysis of how the sites of atrocities are being used. This chapter argues that, while international justice offers some resolution to a post-war divided society, a full reconciliation is only possible when the communities acknowledge the occurrence of atrocities and the right of victims to visit these places to mourn and remember.

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Japan, the League of Nations and the Permanent Court of International Justice on the Question of Upper Silesia, Vilnius and Memel

Problems of World History ◽

10.46869/2707-6776-2019-8-4 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 80-104

Author(s):

R. Shindo

Keyword(s):

League Of Nations ◽

International Justice ◽

World War ◽

Upper Silesia ◽

The First World War ◽

Permanent Member ◽

The Hague ◽

Post War ◽

Second World ◽

First World

The First World War marked a turning point for civilization development in the 20th century. With the collapse of the Central Powers, a new international order arose. In the wake of the Paris PeaceConference, the founding of the League of Nations was above all due to the initiative of the victorious powers. Member states were expected to contribute to maintaining world peace. Japan was one of themajor Allied powers and a permanent member of the League Council. In this position, Japan was significantly involved in the post-war politics of Europe. To elucidate the nature and consequences of this involvement, the activities of Japanese diplomats in the League of Nations and in the Permanent Court of International Justice in the Hague during theperiod between the First and Second World Wars are examined. Particular attention is paid to Japan’s participation in the regulation of the demarcation and minority issues in Upper Silesia and in theVilnius and Memel districts.

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A Permanent Court of International Justice

Nordic Journal of International Law ◽

10.1163/157181003771013816 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 72 (3) ◽

pp. 399-418

Author(s):

Ole Spiermann

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

International Law ◽

International Justice ◽

International Level ◽

Active Life ◽

Court Of Justice ◽

International Adjudication

AbstractThe Permanent Court of International Justice was the first significant court of justice at the international level. Its active life spanned over two decades and yielded an international judiciary while exploring the merits of international adjudication and international law when put into practice. It was partly due to the legacy of the Permanent Court that the second half of the twentieth century witnessed several other successful projects of international justice. At the same time, the decisions of the Permanent Court indicated some of the pertinent problems of international adjudication, notably the omnipresent risk of judges being influenced by national tendencies and traditions with parochial views of international law in result.

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Voting Behavior of National Judges in International Courts

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.2307/2197412 ◽

1969 ◽

Vol 63 (2) ◽

pp. 224-236 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Il Ro Suh

Keyword(s):

Voting Behavior ◽

International Justice ◽

International Court Of Justice ◽

International Courts ◽

Court Of Justice ◽

International Court ◽

History Of ◽

International Adjudication

It has been assumed in international adjudication that each state in the litigation should be permitted to have a judge of its own nationality on the bench. This practice of employing national judges in international courts is deeply rooted in the history of arbitration and judicial settlement. Responding to a demand for it, the Committee of Jurists in 1920–1921 embodied the plan in Article 31 of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice. This article was transferred intact to the Statute of the present International Court of Justice in 1945. Whether judges of the nationality of the parties, either in arbitration tribunals or in courts of justice, can be counted upon to be as “independent” as the processes of justice require, and as Article 2 of the present Statute stipulates, is a question of some moment to present-day international justice. It has been suggested as an alternative that a judge on the International Court of the nationality of the litigant should abstain; thus a state with no judge of its nationality on the Court would not be at a disadvantage.

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Acceptance, and Withdrawal or Denial, of World Court Jurisdiction: Some Recent Trends as to Jurisdiction

Israel Law Review ◽

10.1017/s0021223700017593 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 20 (2-3) ◽

pp. 148-166

Author(s):

Edward McWhinney

Keyword(s):

International Court Of Justice ◽

United Nations General ◽

Court Of Justice ◽

Peaceful Settlement ◽

International Court ◽

Recent Trends ◽

United Nations General Assembly ◽

International Adjudication ◽

Post War ◽

The 1960S

The political attacks being mounted today against international organisation—the United Nations General Assembly, and especially UNESCO—are paralleled by some differences and challenges to the International Court of Justice, and this on the part of some of the Court's erstwhile most enthusiastic supporters. It used to be almost an act of political faith for Western, or Western-influenced, para-professional legal associations, meeting in the immediate post-War era and up to the 1960s, to reaffirm their support for the principle of international adjudication as the prime method of peaceful settlement of international disputes, and for the acceptance by all States of the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court as the most affirmative and concrete way of demonstrating their endorsement of that principle. It was once a key element in the instructions of Western delegations to international legal conferences to insist upon the primacy of judicial settlement in any formal legal affirmation of the principle of peaceful settlement and in any listing of the alternative modes of its exercise.

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International Law and International Justice

The Oxford Handbook of International Political Theory ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198746928.013.9 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 142-152

Author(s):

Hilary Charlesworth

Keyword(s):

International Law ◽

International Criminal ◽

International Economic Order ◽

Legal Order ◽

International Justice ◽

International Criminal Law ◽

International Legal Order ◽

International Adjudication ◽

The Relationship ◽

International Rule

This chapter investigates the relationship between the concepts of international justice and international law. It suggests that the idea of an international rule of law is constructed on procedural, rather than substantive, accounts of justice. Against the background of two opposing tendencies in the international legal order that influence ideas of international justice, namely the Westphalian and UN Charter accounts, the chapter considers various attempts to incorporate notions of justice in the international legal order. Examples are drawn from the 1970s campaign for a New International Economic Order at the UN, from international adjudication, from feminist campaigns, and from the work of international legal scholars such as Thomas Franck and Steven Ratner. The chapter argues that the concept of international justice has become associated largely with international criminal law, and indicates the limitations of this linkage.

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