International Court of Justice

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Admissibility vs Jurisdiction in Guyana v Venezuela (ICJ)

On 6 April 2023, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its judgment in the case of Arbitral Award of 3 October 1899 (Guyana v Venezuela). The background to this case has already been discussed in detail on this blog here. In short, it relates to a centuries-old territorial dispute originating in the colonial era, unsuccessfully resolved by an Arbitral Award in 1899, the validity of which has long been disputed by one of the parties (Venezuela). This most recent judgment relates to the admissibility and application of Venezuela’s preliminary objection that the UK is an indispensable third party to the proceedings under the Monetary Gold principle. This blog post considers two interesting aspects of the judgment. The first relates to the distinction between admissibility and jurisdiction that the Court makes in relation to the admissibility of Venezuela’s objection. The second relates to the Court’s application of the Monetary Gold rule.

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EJIL:The Podcast! Episode 18 – “Be Careful What You Ask For”

In this episode Dapo Akande, Marko Milanovic and Philippa Webb are joined by Philippe Sands (University College London and 11KBW) and Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh (University of Amsterdam and University of the South Pacific). The focus is on the advisory function of international courts and tribunals. In December 2022, the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International…

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Will history repeat itself? Anticipating the ICJ advisory opinion on the legal status of Israel’s occupation and its consequences

The Request for Advisory Opinion On 30 December 2022 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/77/247, containing the annual indictment of Israeli practices in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. In addition, the resolution contains one novelty, a request addressed to the ICJ to render an Advisory Opinion on the following…

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UN General Assembly Committee Adopts Resolution Requesting Second Advisory Opinion from ICJ on Occupied Palestinian Territory

On 10 November 2022, at the Seventy-seventh session of the UN General Assembly, Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee), the State of Palestine- in a move which skirted largely under the media radar- tabled a resolution under Item 47 calling for an International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on the legal status of Israel’s occupation of…

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‘Yes, they can …’: PCA national groups of States that are not members of the United Nations and the nomination of ICJ judges

As of today, membership in the United Nations, and with it the status as a contracting party of the Statute of the ICJ as per Art. 93 (1) UN Charter, is, unlike in the first decades of the existence of the organization, almost universal. Yet, there continue to be entities, and notably Palestine and Kosovo, that have not…

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