The International Law Commission encourages the progressive development of international law and its codification. The Commission`s work on a topic generally covers certain aspects of progressive development as well as the codification of international law, the balance between the two varying from topic to topic. c. the existence of a fact which, if established, would constitute a breach of an international obligation; The United States played an important role in the creation of the World Court, but never acceded to it. [7] Presidents Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Roosevelt all supported membership, but it was impossible to secure a 2/3 majority in the Senate for a treaty. [8] Once a case has been filed, any party (usually the applicant) may seek a court order to protect the status quo until the matter is heard. These injunctions are known as interim measures (or interim) and correspond to injunctions under U.S. law. Section 41 of the Act authorizes the court to make such orders. The court must be satisfied that it has prima facie jurisdiction to hear the merits of the case before adopting interim measures. The ICJ is a body of 15 judges elected by the General Assembly and the Security Council for a nine-year term.
No more than one judge of a given nationality may sit on the Court at the same time, and the judges as a whole must represent the principal civilizations and legal systems of the world. The ICJ, based at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, is the only principal organ of the United Nations that is not located in New York. [3] The official working languages are English and French. A majority of the Court was clearly reluctant to intervene in a dispute in such a way that it could possibly come into conflict with the Council. In the case of Nicaragua, the Court concluded that there was not necessarily a contradiction between the actions of the Security Council and the jurisprudence of the ICJ. However, when there is room for conflict, the balance seems to be in favour of the Security Council. [ref. needed] As of 22 June 2018[Update], the composition of the Tribunal is as follows:[20][21] Cases before the ICJ follow a standard pattern.
The action is brought by the applicant, who submits a written statement setting out the jurisdiction of the court and the merits of his claim. The defendant may accept the jurisdiction of the court and file his own claim on the merits. After deliberation, the court gives a majority opinion. Individual judges may give concurring opinions (if they agree with the outcome of the court`s judgment, but differ in their reasoning) or dissenting opinions (if they disagree with the majority). No appeal is possible, but either party may ask the court to resolve if there is a dispute about the meaning or scope of the tribunal`s decision. [49] The PCIJ has represented an important innovation in international jurisprudence in several respects: that is, the nature or extent of reparation for breach of an international obligation. The Tribunal`s workload covers a wide range of adjudicative activities. After the Court ruled that the secret war of the United States against Nicaragua violated international law (Nicaragua v. United States), the United States withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986 and accepted the Court`s jurisdiction only at its discretion. [11] Chapter XIV of the Charter of the United Nations empowers the UN Security Council to execute the Court`s judgments. However, this application is subject to the veto of the five permanent members of the Council, which the United States exercised in the case of Nicaragua. [12] If the parties agree, they may also grant the court the freedom to decide ex aequo et bono (“in justice and equity”),[48] giving the ICJ the freedom to make a fair decision based on what is fair in the circumstances.
This provision has not been applied in the history of the Tribunal. So far, the International Court of Justice has dealt with about 130 cases. Each Member of the Court shall, before taking up his duties in open court, solemnly declare that he will exercise his powers impartially and conscientiously. In general, the Court sits as an ordinary court, but in the last fifteen years it has sometimes sat as a chamber. Articles 26 to 29 of the Statute allow the Court to form smaller chambers, usually composed of 3 or 5 judges, to hear cases. Article 26 provides for two types of chambers: on the one hand, chambers for special categories of cases and, on the other hand, the creation of ad hoc chambers for certain disputes. In 1993, under Article 26(1) of the ICJ Statute, a Special Chamber was established to deal specifically with environmental issues (although it was never used). The relationship between the ICJ and the Security Council and the separation of powers were examined by the Court in 1992 in the Pan Am case. The Court had to consider a request for interim provisional measures submitted by Libya to protect its rights, which had been violated by the threat of economic sanctions by the United Kingdom and the United States. The problem is that these sanctions have been approved by the Security Council, which could lead to a conflict between the functions of the Security Council under Chapter VII and the judicial function of the Court.
The Court held, by eleven votes to five, that it could not order the interim measures requested because the rights claimed by Libya, even if legitimate under the Montreal Convention, could not prima facie be considered appropriate, since the measure had been ordered by the Security Council. In accordance with Article 103 of the Charter of the United Nations, obligations under the Charter take precedence over other contractual obligations. Nevertheless, the Court declared the application admissible in 1998. [46] No decision on the merits has been made since the parties (United Kingdom, United States and Libya) settled the matter out of court in 2003. [ref. needed] Article 31 of the Statute provides for a procedure whereby judges ad hoc sit before the General Court in contentious proceedings. The system allows each party in a contentious case (if not, one of its nationals sits on the court) to choose an additional person to sit as a judge only in that case. It is therefore possible to sit up to seventeen judges in a case. If one of the parties “fails to fulfil its obligations under a judgment of the Court”, the Security Council may be invited to “make recommendations or adopt measures” if it deems it necessary.
In practice, the tribunal`s powers were limited by the unsuccessful party`s refusal to comply with the tribunal`s judgment and by the Security Council`s refusal to impose consequences. In theory, however, “a judgment of the Court binds the parties to the case, final and without appeal” and “by signing the Charter, a State Member of the United Nations undertakes to comply with any decision of the International Court of Justice in a case to which it is a party”. [47] The Court was established by the Charter of the United Nations in 1945 and became operational in 1946 as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Statute of the International Court of Justice, like its predecessor, is the main constitutional document that constitutes and regulates the Court. [10] The Allied Conference that followed in Dumbarton Oaks in the United States issued a proposal in October 1944 calling for the creation of an intergovernmental organization to include an international court. In April 1945, a meeting was convened in Washington, D.C., attended by 44 jurists from around the world, to draft a statute for the proposed court. The bill was essentially similar to the PCIJ bill, and there was some discussion about whether a new tribunal should be created. At the San Francisco Conference, which took place from 25 to 26 April. In June 1945, with the participation of 50 countries, it was decided to create a completely new tribunal as the principal organ of the new United Nations. The Statute of this Court would be an integral part of the Charter of the United Nations, which, in order to ensure continuity, expressly stipulated that the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was based on that of the PCIJ.
The Charter of the United Nations has set itself an objective in its preamble: “To create conditions conducive to the maintenance of justice and respect for obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law”. Since then, development and respect for international law have been an integral part of the organization`s work. In addition to the International Court of Justice, many international courts, international tribunals, ad hoc tribunals and tribunals supported by the United Nations have different relationships with the United Nations (such as the Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon). All States parties to the Statute of the Court have the right to nominate candidates. These proposals are not made by the Government of the State concerned, but by a group composed of the members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration appointed by that State (see history), i.e. the four jurists who may be called upon to sit on an arbitral tribunal under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. In the case of countries that do not participate in the Permanent Court of Arbitration, appointments are made by a panel composed in the same manner. Each group may nominate up to four candidates, of whom a maximum of two may have their own nationality, while the others may come from any country, whether it is a party to the Statute or has declared its recognition of the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ.
