International Court Of Justice and Settlement of Interstate Conflicts
Department: Law
No of Pages: 40
Project Code: LL3
References: Yes
Cost: 5,000XAF Cameroonian
: $15 for International students
ABSTRACT
This
work is about the International Court of Justice And The Settlement Of
Interstate Conflicts. The International Court of Justice is the principal
judicial organ of the United Nations.
This
work goes a long way to show the
insurgency which started in 2006 whereby after independence, this border land
”The Bakassi peninsula ” between Cameroon and Nigeria was not settled which
then called for the procedure before the International Court Of Justice where
this dispute was settled and the land given to Cameroon on the 25th of
September 2009.
In
this work, we see the judicial and diplomatic approach on how the dispute was
resolved between them as such a great achievement of the International Court of
Justice on the settlement of interstate conflicts.
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE
STUDY
The
International Court of Justice (ICJ) is, of course, the principal judicial
organ of the United Nations1. It is the legal successor to the Permanent
International Court of Justice (PCIJ), whose jurisprudence “remains pertinent
and compelling to this day”2.
Like
its predecessor, the ICJ has a dual role: to settle in accordance with
international law the legal disputes submitted to it by States, and to give
advisory opinions on legal questions submitted to it by the UN General Assembly
and the Security Council and other duly authorized organs and agencies.
It
is often known as “World Court”. It
was established in 1946 by United
Nations 3. After the Second World War, the Permanent International Court of
Justice (PICJ) was replaced by ICJ. The seat of the court is at Peace Palace in
The Hague4.
Its
official language is English and French. The Court operates under a Statute
which forms an integral part of the Charter, as well as under its own Rules. The
roots of the ICJ go back to an era at the beginning of the 19th century when visionaries believed that war
could be outlawed and that governments could settle their disputes by using an international
court.
One
of the treaties was the Hague Convention for the Peaceful Settlement of international
disputes. Countries that agreed to be bound by that treaty agreed to settle
their disputes by peaceful means, such as through the new Permanent Court of
Arbitration.
The
Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) was created in 1920 alongside
the League of Nations. Between 1922 and 1940 it dealt with 29 contentious cases
brought to it by countries, and it gave 28 Advisory Opinions to the Council of
the League of Nations.
During
World War II, thought was given to a new League and a new court. The
International Court of Justice (ICJ) Statute forms part of the UN Charter that
was signed in June 1945 and entered into force on October 24th 1945. A Member
of the UN automatically becomes a Member of the ICJ5.
The
International Court of Justice has two main tasks as per Article 34 and 35 of
the Statute6; first, it handles contentious cases brought to it by countries
that have accepted its jurisdiction. Its workload has varied. It was quite busy
between 1946 and about 1966.
Communist
countries and Third World countries boycotted it as a club for rich western
countries. Since the late 1980s it has been busier than ever before (and much
busier than the PCIJ ever was). Countries have now found greater use of it; ironically
about the a third of recent cases have been dispute between African countries.
As
at February 2005, the ICJ has delivered 89 judgments since 1946, dealing with
such matters as land frontiers and maritime boundaries, territorial
sovereignty, the non-use of force, non-interference in the internal affairs of
countries, diplomatic relations, hostage taking, the right of asylum,
nationality, rites of passage and economic rights7.
The
ICJ’s second task is to give Advisory Opinions to the UN institutions. The
Opinions are not binding on the UN institutions that ask for them and no
country is bound to take notice of any Opinion.
Since
1946, the ICJ has given 25 Advisory
Opinions, concerning such matters as admission to UN Membership, reparation for
injuries suffered in the service of UN, territorial status of South-West Africa
(Namibia) And Western Sahara, payments for UN operations, status of UN Human
Rights Rapporteurs, the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, and
the legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the occupied
Palestinian territory.
The
ICJ is composed of 15 Judges8 elected to
nine-year terms of office by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council
sitting independently of each other. It may not include more than one judge of
any nationality. Judges serve in their personal capacity and do not represent
their governments9.
Function
of ICJ is to resolve the dispute between the sovereign states. Disputes may be
placed before the court by parties upon conditions prescribed by the U.N.
Security Council.
No
state, however, may be subject to the jurisdiction of the court without the
state’s consent. Consent may be given by
express agreement at the
time the
dispute is presented
to the court, by prior
agreement
to accept the jurisdiction of the court in particular categories of cases, or
by treaty provisions with respect
to disputes arising
from matters covered
by the treaty.
Article 6(2)
of the court’s statute, known as the
Optional Clause, allows
states to make a unilateral declaration recognizing “as compulsory
ipso facto and without special
agreement, in relation to any other state accepting the same obligation, the
jurisdiction of the Court in all legal disputes.”
The
Court discharges its duties as a full court but, at the request of the parties,
it may also establish ad hoc chambers to examine specific cases. A Chamber of
Summary Procedure is elected every year by the Court in accordance with its
Statute. Thus, the focus of this work is to examine interstate dispute
settlement by the International Court of Justice.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The
ICJ has made a great deal of progress. It has managed to survive all the
ideological struggles of the Cold War and the winding up of colonies. It has a
renewed sense of relevance and a busy workload to prove it. As at June 2005,
the ICJ had 12 cases pending.
The
most important challenge facing the ICJ borders on its jurisdiction.
Jurisdiction is the sine qua non for the exercise of judicial powers. Where it
is lacking, a judicial body cannot exercise legally binding judicial power over
a subject. And thus considering the functioning of this international court since inception, the
court has certain problems.
There
are six problems: two are of a general nature and four relate to the ICJ in
particular. First, there is
a lack of a
common global philosophy
underpinning respect for
one system of international law.
There
is equally the impact of national sovereignty. Many governments
have been unwilling to accept
that the ICJ
has an automatic
right to hear
cases brought against them ("compulsory
jurisdiction").
Only
nation-states can be parties to an ICJ case14. This means that only countries
can bring a case and only countries
can be defendants.
In Australia, for example, there
are occasionally statements that
Aboriginal groups will take Australia to the ICJ because they disagree with a government policy;
they cannot.
Particular ethnic
groups and indigenous
peoples have no standing in their own right at the ICJ.
Once an ICJ decision is made, there is no automatic “police force” to follow it
up. The matter could be referred to the UN Security Council but here it would
be vulnerable to the system of the five permanent members.
For
example, in the 1980s Nicaragua took the United States to the ICJ over the
mining of its harbours. When the US
realized that the case was going badly, it walked out the ICJ and then vetoed
attempts by the UN Security Council to enforce the ICJ decision.
Not every dispute may be suitable for
handling by an international court system. Example concerns the Suez Canal in
the late 1950s, when Egypt was refusing the canal to be used by ships trading
with Israel.
The
US was on good terms then with both Israel and Egypt, and urged both to take
the dispute to the ICJ. But both refused since the ICJ would give a clear
decision and neither side wanted to risk a clear judgment against it,
(governments sometimes prefer a blurred result).
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
- What is the composition and jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in the settlement of interstates disputes?
- What is the procedure before the International Court of Justice?
- Was the procedure respected by the International Court of Justice in the settlement of the conflict between Cameroon and Nigeria over the Bakassi peninsular?
- Are there policy recommendations for the effective management of Inter-States conflicts by the International Court of Justice?
1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study include general and specific objectives:
1.4.1 General Objective
- The general objective of the study is to examine the role of the International Court of Justice in the settlement of Inter-States conflicts.
1.4.2 Specific Objectives
The
specific objectives of the study are;
- To examine the composition and jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in the settlement of Inter-States disputes.
- To analyse the procedure before the International Court of Justice.
- To investigate whether the procedure before the International Court of Justice in the settlement of conflicts was respected in the case between Cameroon and Nigeria over the Bakassi peninsula.
- To make policy recommendations for the effective management of Inter-States conflicts by the International Court of Justice.
