Expert opinions were often controversial because the questions asked were controversial or the case was pursued as an indirect means of bringing a truly contentious case to court. For examples of advisory opinions, see the Advisory Opinions section of the article List of cases of the International Court of Justice. One of these well-known reports is the case of nuclear weapons. The first permanent institution created 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. An advisory opinion is a task of the Tribunal open only to certain organs and agencies of the United Nations. The Charter of the United Nations gives the General Assembly or the Security Council the power to request an advisory opinion from the Tribunal on any question of law.
United Nations organs other than the General Assembly and the Permanent Council may request an advisory opinion from the ICJ only if approved by the General Assembly. Other United Nations bodies merely request an opinion from the Court on matters within their sphere of activity. [34] Upon receipt of an application, the tribunal decides which States and organizations can provide relevant information and gives them an opportunity to make written or oral submissions. The opinions were designed as a means by which UN agencies could use the Court`s assistance to decide complex legal issues that might fall within their respective mandates. The ICJ consists of fifteen judges elected by the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council for a nine-year term from a list of persons appointed by the national groups to the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The electoral procedure is defined in Articles 4 to 19 of the ICJ Statute. Elections are staggered with five judges elected every three years to ensure continuity within the Court. In the event of the death of a judge, the practice was generally to elect a judge at a special election to terminate his or her term. The judges of the International Court of Justice are entitled to His Excellency`s title.
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] 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] The PCIJ has represented an important innovation in international jurisprudence in several respects: if the court decides that it has jurisdiction and that the case is admissible, the defendant must file a commemorative statement in support of the claimant`s claim. Once all written arguments have been submitted, the court holds a public hearing on the matter. 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 in deciding jurisdiction, such as whether the issue is not justiciable or that it is not a “dispute”.
The Allied Conference held in Dumbarton Oaks in the United States in October 1944 issued a proposal calling for the creation of an intergovernmental organization that would include an international court. A meeting was then convened in Washington, D.C. in April 1945, which involved 44 lawyers from around the world to draft a statute for the proposed tribunal. 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. 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 just decision based on what is just 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. Once a case has been filed, any party (usually the plaintiff) can apply for a court order to protect the status quo until the case 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. Article 6 of the Statute provides that all judges “shall be elected, irrespective of their nationality, from among persons of high moral character” who are either qualified to hold the highest judicial office in their home State or who are known to be jurists of sufficient competence in international law.