The International Court of Justice as a Guardian of the Unity of Humanitarian Law

Leiden Journal of International Law

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 593-611

  Raimondo, Fabián O ^a  

^a ERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

fragmentation of international law; International Court of Justice; international humanitarian law; international jurisprudence

Indexed keywords

EID: 85009636895     PISSN: 09221565     EISSN: 14789698     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S092215650700427X     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. See M. Shahabuddeen, Precedent in the World Court (1996), at 92.
2. In that respect two considerations apply. The first is that the Court's findings concerning the law of genocide are not the object of examination in this article, since strictly speaking that law pertains to international criminal law and not to international humanitarian law; nor are the determinations about the attribution to states of conduct contrary to international humanitarian law that is performed by a person or group of persons and is directed or controlled by those states or those about the hierarchy of the rules of international humanitarian law and the effects of the violation of international humanitarian law obligations, given that they pertain to the law of state responsibility. The second consideration is that although previous scholarly writing addresses the issue of the ascertainment of international humanitarian law by the Court, either it does not encompass the most recent judgments and advisory opinions of the Court or, when it does so, it is written in Spanish and hence its reading may be difficult or even impossible for many. The scholarly works addressing the global issue of international humanitarian law and the Court are the following: R. Abi-Saab, ‘The “General Principles” of Humanitarian Law according to the International Court of Justice’, (1987) 69 (259)
3. International Review of the Red Cross 367;
4. S. Schwebel, ‘The Roles of the Security Council and the International Court of Justice in the Application of International Humanitarian Law’, (1995) 27
5. New York University Journal on International Law & Politics 731;
6. V. Mani, ‘The International Court and the Humanitarian Law’, (1999) 39 (1)
7. Indian Journal of International Law 32;
8. J. Gardam, ‘The Contribution of the International Court of Justice to International Humanitarian Law’, (2001) 14 LJIL 349;
9. V. Chetail, ‘The Contribution of the International Court of Justice to International Humanitarian Law’, (2003) 85 (850)
10. International Review of the Red Cross 235;
11. F. Raimondo, Corte Internacional de Justicia, derecho internacional humanitario y crimen internacional de genocidio (2005).
12. See, e.g. G. Schwarzenberger, International Law (1957), I, 51.
13. See also I. Yung Chung, Legal Problems Involved in the Corfu Channel Incident (1959), 162.
14. J. Pictet (ed.), The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949:
15. Commentary (1952), I, 48.
16. See Rule 45, in J.-M. Henckaerts, ‘Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law: A Contribution to the Understanding and Respect for the Rule of Law in Armed Conflict’, (2005) 87 (857)
17. International Review of the Red Cross 175, at 202.
18. See Y. Dinstein, ‘The ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law’, (2006) 36 Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 1.
19. Nuclear Weapons advisory opinion, note 12, para. 75.
20. For instance see G. Aldrich, ‘Some Reflections on the Origins of the 1977 Geneva Protocols’, in C. Swinarski, (ed.), Études et essais sur le droit international humanitaire et sur les principes de la Croix-Rouge en l'honneur de Jean Pictet (1984), at 130.
21. See L. Doswald-Beck, ‘Le droit international humanitaire et l'avis consultatif de la Cour internationale de Justice sur la licéitéde lamenace ou de l'emploi des armes nucléaires’, (1997) 79 (823) Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge 41.
22. Ib id. The literature on the Martens Clause is immense. See, for instance, A. Cassese, ‘The Martens Clause: Half a Loaf or Simply Pie in the Sky?’, (2000) 11 EJIL 1087; and
23. T. Meron, ‘The Martens Clause, the Laws of Humanity, and the Dictates of Public Conscience’, (2000) 94(1) AJIL 78.
24. J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, 2 vols. (2005). See Rules 1, 70, and 87, in Henckaerts, note 40, at 198, 204, and 206, respectively.
25. Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004, [2004] ICJ Rep. 136, paras. 46-50 (Judge Kooijmans, Separate Opinion).
26. See M. Virally, ‘Fuentes del derecho internacional’, in M. Sorensen (ed.), Manual de Derecho Internacional Público (1994) 179;
27. J. Charney, ‘Is International Law Threatened by Multiple International Courts and Tribunals?’, (1998) 271 Recueil des cours de l'Académie de droit international, passim.
28. See G. Finch, ‘Les sources modernes du droit international’, (1935-III) Recueil des cours de l'Académie de droit international, at 535.
29. P. Daillier and A. Pellet, Droit international public (2002), 114, para. 59.
30. See R. David and C. Jauffret-Spinozi, Les grands systemes de droit contemporaines (2002), 106 ff. 271 ff.
31. When deciding on a customary law issue the Court recalls its own decisions to such an extent that ‘it has been accused of paying these more attention than the actual State practice creative of the rules it is called upon to state’. H. Thirlway, ‘The Sources of International Law’, in M. Evans (ed.), International Law (2006), 129.
32. Sorensenmade the same observation with regard to the PCIJ. See M. Sorensen, Les sources du droit international (1946), at 166.
33. ICJ Statute, Art. 59, which stipulates the legal effects of judgments, reads as follows: ‘The decision of the Court has no binding force except between the parties and in respect of that particular case.’ Although the Statute does not lay down any precise legal rule stipulating the legal effects of advisory opinions, it is plain from their name that these consist in an advice on legalmatters that is devoid of binding effects. This means that the requesting UN organ or specialized agency remains free to give effect to the opinion. For a succinct but illustrative summary of the Court's advisory proceedings see H. Thirlway, ‘The International Court of Justice’,
34. See, e.g. Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand), Preliminary Objections, Judgment of 26 May 1961, [1961] ICJ Rep. 17, at 21 ff.
35. C. Parry, The Sources and Evidences of International Law (1965), at 92.
36. V. Degan, Sources of International Law (1997), at 193.
37. See Speech by H.E. Rosalyn Higgins, President of the International Court of Justice, to the General Assembly of the United Nations (26 October 2006).
38. For discussions on this decision see T. Gill, ‘Commentary’, in A. Klip and G. Sluiter (eds.), Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia 1997-1999 (2001), Vol. 3, at 868-75, especially at 872-3; Raimondo, note 8, at 91-6. The controversy about which test (the ‘overall’ or the ‘effective’ control test) applies for determining state responsibility arising out the conduct directed or controlled by that state remains controversial, as this year the Court has given the reasonwhy it was unable to share the ICTY's Appeals Chamber's view on that matter and eventually reaffirmed its precedent of the Nicaragua judgment. See Case concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Judgment of 26 February 2007, unreported, paras. 396-407.