PRESS CONFERENCE BY ICJ PRESIDENT

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY ICJ PRESIDENT

The human and financial resources of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) were no longer sufficient for the proper carrying out of its tasks, the President of the ICJ told correspondents this afternoon in a Headquarters press conference.

Following his address to the General Assembly this morning, Judge Gilbert Guillaume (France) said that during the cold war the Court had very few cases submitted to it. But over the last 10 years, the situation had changed dramatically, to the point where the Court’s docket was now overcharged. It currently had 24 cases before it. While that figure might seem low compared to the number of cases in national courts, one had to keep in mind that the ICJ handled inter-governmental cases of great importance.

The Court was asking the Assembly for a substantial increase in its budget for the next biennium, he said. It was requesting that its small registry of 61 persons be increased by 25 more people to avoid the postponement of the rendering of judgements in several cases. A number of countries had spoken in the Assembly supporting the increase as necessary. “We hope our request will be accepted and that as a consequence, international justice will continue to be administered properly”, he said.

In offering some background data on the ICJ, he said the Court was the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, and had jurisdiction to decide on legal disputes between States submitted to the Court. Its 15 judges were elected by the Security Council and the General Assembly. It was the oldest international judicial institution, having been established in 1922 by the League of Nations. The seat of the Court was at The Hague.

Among the 24 cases before the Court were four disputes over land and maritime boundaries involving Qatar vs. Bahrain, Cameroon vs. Nigeria, Indonesia vs. Malaysia, and Nicaragua vs. Honduras, he said. In others, States complained about the manner in which one of their nationals had been treated by another State, as in Germany vs. United States, concerning the applicability of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to a death-row inmate allegedly denied timely contact with German consular officials. Other cases involved the use of force, such as Yugoslavia’s action against eight North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, challenging the legality of their action in Kosovo. In another, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was claiming that it had been the victim of armed aggression by Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda. The Democratic Republic of the Congo had also requested a hearing involving a case against Belgium, which had delivered an indictment against the Congolese Foreign Minister.

Asked if there was a prospect of the eight cases advanced by Yugoslavia being abandoned, Mr. Guillaume replied that the eight countries had raised a preliminary objection on the jurisdiction of the Court and the admissibility of the request. The objections had been communicated to Yugoslavia, and the Court was awaiting an answer by next March. He had no indication at this time of the Yugoslav Government’s intent.

ICJ Press Conference - 2 - 26 October 2000

In response to another correspondent who questioned how the Court could hear a case involving the United States when that country did not accept ICJ jurisdiction, Mr. Guillaume explained that there were three situations in which the Court could exercise jurisdiction: when its general jurisdiction was accepted; or when there were provisions in a treaty granting jurisdiction to the ICJ in the case of disputes; or when there was a special agreement between two States giving the ICJ jurisdiction for a specific case. In the matter of Germany vs. United States, the case came under the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and the Court’s jurisdiction was not being contested by the United States.

He informed correspondents that the ICJ had an excellent website (www.icj), in both English and French, that could be accessed for more information.

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