In cases where the interests of a third State are affected, that State may be allowed to intervene in the case and to participate as a full party. Under article 62, a State “having a legal interest” may make a request; However, it is up to the court to decide whether or not to authorize the intervention. Applications for intervention are rare and the first successful application was not submitted until 1991. Ad hoc chambers are convened more frequently. For example, chambers were used to hear the Gulf of Maine case (Canada/United States). [18] In this case, the parties have made it clear that they will withdraw the case unless the court appoints judges for the chamber acceptable to the parties. Chambers` judgments may either have less authority than the Court`s full judgments or undermine the correct interpretation of universal international law, which is shaped by a variety of cultural and legal perspectives. On the other hand, recourse to chambers could encourage greater referral to the Court of Justice and thus improve the settlement of international disputes. [19] Article 94 establishes the duty of all Members of the UN to comply with the Court`s decisions concerning them. If the parties fail to comply, the case may be referred to the Security Council for implementation. There are obvious problems with such a method of application. If the verdict is directed against one of the five permanent members of the Security Council or its allies, any implementing resolution would be vetoed. This occurred, for example, after the Nicaragua case, when Nicaragua raised the issue of United States non-compliance with the Court`s decision before the Security Council.
[16] If the Security Council refuses to enforce a sentence against another state, there is no way to force the state to comply. Moreover, the most effective form of action for the Security Council, namely enforcement measures under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, can be justified only when international peace and security are at stake. The Security Council has never done that before. [ref. needed] 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.
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). 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. The PCIJ represented an important innovation in international jurisprudence in several respects: the first permanent institution established to settle international disputes was the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), established by the Hague Peace Conference of 1899.
Initiated by Russian Tsar Nicholas II, the conference brought together all the world`s major powers as well as several small states and resulted in the first multilateral treaties on war. [5] These include the Convention on the Settlement of International Disputes in the Pacific, which establishes the institutional and procedural framework for the arbitration to be held in The Hague, Netherlands. Although the procedure would be assisted by a permanent bureau whose functions would be equivalent to those of a secretariat or court registry, the arbitrators would be appointed by the disputing States from a larger pool provided by each member of the Convention. The BCP was founded in 1900 and began its work in 1902. The Charter of the United Nations codifies the main principles of international relations, from the sovereign equality of States to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations. 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. There cannot be two judges who are nationals of the same country. According to article 9, the composition of the Court must represent “the principal forms of civilization and the most important legal systems in the world”. Essentially, this meant common law, civil law, and socialist law (now post-communist law). A defendant who does not wish to submit to the jurisdiction of the court may raise preliminary objections. These objections must be decided before the court can rule on the merits of the plaintiff`s claim.
Often, a separate public hearing on preliminary objections takes place and the court falls. As a rule, defendants raise preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the court and/or to the admissibility of the case. Inadmissibility refers to a set of arguments concerning factors that the court should take into account when deciding on jurisdiction, such as: the fact that the issue is not justiciable or that it is not a “dispute”. This work is carried out in a variety of ways — through courts, tribunals, multilateral treaties — and by the Security Council, which may authorize peacekeeping missions, impose sanctions or authorize the use of force when there is a threat to international peace and security, if it deems it necessary. These powers are conferred on it by the Charter of the United Nations, which is considered an international treaty. As such, it is an instrument of international law and States Members of the United Nations are bound by it. The Court is part of a global struggle to end impunity and, through international criminal justice, seeks to hold those responsible for their crimes accountable for their crimes and to ensure that these crimes do not happen again. The Historical Archives of the Médiathèque de droit international is a unique resource for teaching, studying and researching the main legal instruments relating to international law. Some of the measures taken by the Security Council have implications for international law, for example with regard to peacekeeping missions, ad hoc tribunals, sanctions and resolutions adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter. Under article 13 (b) of the Rome Statute, the Security Council may refer certain situations to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it is established that international crimes (such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes of aggression) have been committed. The programme of support for the teaching, study, dissemination and wider understanding of international law aims to contribute to a better knowledge of international law “as a means of strengthening international peace and security and of promoting friendly relations and cooperation among States”. It is one of the cornerstones of the United Nations efforts to promote international law.
The unprecedented bloodshed of World War I led to the creation of the League of Nations, which was founded at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 as the world`s first intergovernmental organization for the maintenance of peace and collective security. Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations provided for the establishment of a Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which would have jurisdiction over any international dispute submitted to it by the parties to the dispute, as well as to give an advisory opinion on any dispute or matter referred to it by the League of Nations. Many disputes are successfully settled by other means of dispute settlement, so they never have to be referred to the Security Council or the ICJ. And with the multitude of dispute resolution mechanisms available, such as regional courts and international tribunals, disputing parties have a number of options for resolving their disputes. And it is gratifying to know that the ICJ is ready to settle their disputes for those member states that recognize its jurisdiction. In principle, the Court`s opinions are only advisory in nature, but they are influential and widely respected. Some instruments or regulations may provide in advance for the advisory opinion to be expressly binding on certain bodies or States, but by their nature they are not binding under the Statute of the Court of Justice.
