« Recourse to the International Court of Justice » : différence entre les versions

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There is no other international court with such general jurisdiction. Any other court will have limited material jurisdiction, sometimes also personal and limited. If we take the Law of the Sea Court with its headquarters in Hamburg, it deals with the law of the sea and is a conventional court under the Montego Bay Convention on the Law of the Sea and ensures the application and interpretation of that Convention. As this convention concerns the whole of the law of the sea, it is a fairly broad competence, but nevertheless limited, we cannot go to a dispute concerning immunities before a court of the law of the sea, for that to happen, we must go to the International Court of Justice. On the other hand, a dispute concerning the law of the sea may well be brought before the International Court.
There is no other international court with such general jurisdiction. Any other court will have limited material jurisdiction, sometimes also personal and limited. If we take the Law of the Sea Court with its headquarters in Hamburg, it deals with the law of the sea and is a conventional court under the Montego Bay Convention on the Law of the Sea and ensures the application and interpretation of that Convention. As this convention concerns the whole of the law of the sea, it is a fairly broad competence, but nevertheless limited, we cannot go to a dispute concerning immunities before a court of the law of the sea, for that to happen, we must go to the International Court of Justice. On the other hand, a dispute concerning the law of the sea may well be brought before the International Court.


When an arbitral tribunal is continued, it is quite possible to mandate arbitrators to deal with any question of international law or even any other issue, but the arbitration is limited in time, but also in personal extension. In time because it deals with a case or a series of cases and it disappears unlike the International Court of Justice, and the arbitral tribunal is also limited as to the parties, because generally, arbitration deals with a dispute between two States, and the arbitral tribunal is constituted by the two States in dispute and constitutes the common body. Third States may not intervene in proceedings before the arbitrator, as the arbitrator is a body of the States in dispute that have concluded the arbitration agreement.
When an arbitral tribunal is continued, it is quite possible to mandate arbitrators to deal with any question of international law or even any other issue, but the arbitration is limited in time, but also in personal extension. In time because it deals with a case or a series of cases and it disappears unlike the International Court of Justice, and the arbitral tribunal is also limited as to the parties because generally, arbitration deals with a dispute between two States, and the arbitral tribunal is constituted by the two States in dispute and constitutes the common body. Third states may not intervene in proceedings before the arbitrator, as the arbitrator is a body of the States in dispute that have concluded the arbitration agreement.


The second remark on the International Court is whether the International Court is there to ensure the rule of law in international affairs? Is it a viable prospect to consider the International Court of Justice as a World Court? As a profession of faith, it is possible to say that the Court should do this, these are opinions on which there is no exclusive or scientific truth. The Court, as it is structured today in positive law, is as perceived by the litigants of States; its mission is, of course, to promote what was sometimes called the rule of law, but that this mission is only one part of these activities, the Court's main task and function is to settle disputes between States in such a way as to resolve the causes of tension and conflict. The resolution of the dispute is the contribution that the Court is being asked to make.
The second remark on the International Court is whether the International Court is there to ensure the rule of law in international affairs? Is it a viable prospect to consider the International Court of Justice as a World Court? As a profession of faith, it is possible to say that the Court should do this, these are opinions on which there is no exclusive or scientific truth. The Court, as it is structured today in positive law, is as perceived by the litigants of States; its mission is, of course, to promote what was sometimes called the rule of law, but that this mission is only one part of these activities, the Court's main task and function is to settle disputes between States in such a way as to resolve the causes of tension and conflict. The resolution of the dispute is the contribution that the Court is being asked to make.
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= La Cour internationale de Justice : généralités et compétences =
= La Cour internationale de Justice : généralités et compétences =


== Généralités ==
== General information ==
The Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Court of Justice? What is this all about? It is not the same Court because it has a different name, and because if it were the same, it would have the same name. What is he doing? This is above all a historical point.


La Cour permanente de justice internationale et Cour internationale de justice ? De quoi est-ce qu’il en retourne ? Il ne s’agit pas de la même Cour parce qu’elle a un nom différent, et parce que si c’était la même, elle aurait le même nom. Quand est-il ? C’est un point avant tout historique.
The Permanent Court was independent of the League of Nations, it is not an organ of the League of Nations, but it was financed by the budget of the League of Nations. The International Court of Justice, in Article 7 of the Charter, says that it is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, but Article 7 in paragraph 1 is not precise in terms of technical legal matters because obviously an International Court of Justice, and above all the organ of the parties to the Statute of the Court. It is possible to be a party to the Statute of the Court without being a member of the United Nations, there are also States Parties to the Court, but not members of the United Nations, but which are part of the "ICJ community", so it is more than the main organ of the United Nations, it is mainly the organ of States Parties to the Statute.


La Cour permanente était indépendante de la Société des Nations, ce n’est pas un organe de la Société des Nations, mais elle était financée par le budget de la Société des Nations. La Cour internationale de justice, à l’article 7 de la Charte, dit que c’est l’organe judiciaire principal des Nations Unies, mais l’article 7 au paragraphe 1 n’est pas précis en termes de matière technique juridique parce qu’évidemment, une Cour internationale de justice, et avant tout l’organe des partis au statut de la Cour. Il est possible d’être partie au statut de la Cour sans être membre des Nations Unies, il y a aussi des États partis de la Cour, mais n’étant pas membres des Nations Unies, mais qui font partie de la « communauté CIJ », c’est donc plus que l’organe principale des Nations Unies, c’est surtout l’organe des États partis au statut.
The Permanent Court was created in 1920 at the time of the League of Nations, it was provided for in Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations which provided for this Court. It had practically the same missions as the current Court and was dissolved in 1948 for reasons related to technical problems and not to a disallowance by the Permanent Court; on the contrary, it was a highly successful Court since the Permanent Court's judgments were all executed from 1920 to 1946. Having all the stops executed in such a turbulent period is a good assessment. It was dissolved in 1946 for technical reasons. The International Court of Justice was created by taking over almost word for word the Statute of the Permanent Court.


La Cour permanente a été créée en 1920 à l’époque de la Société des Nations, elle était prévue dans à l’article 14 du pacte de la Société des Nations qui prévoyait cette Cour. Elle avait pratiquement les mêmes missions que la Cour actuelle et fut dissoute ne 1948 pour des raisons qui touchent à des problèmes techniques et non pas à un désaveu de la Cour permanente ; au contraire, ce fut une Cour hautement couronnée de succès étant donné que les arrêts de la Cour permanente ont tous été exécutés de 1920 à 1946. Faire exécuter tous les arrêts de font dans une période aussi trouble est un bon bilan. Elle fut dissoute en 1946 pour des raisons techniques. La Cour internationale de justice a été créée en reprenant pratiquement mot pour mot le statut de la Cour permanente.  
So, from a legal point of view, there is no continuity between the two jurisdictions, the current Court is not the successor of the Permanent Court, it is a new jurisdiction. Nevertheless, from a material, and therefore not a formal, point of view, the current Court is indeed the successor of the former Court. First of all, because the statute is almost identical, only cosmetics, very small things have been modified, and it has also been necessary to update the procedure for electing judges, but also to modify terms, and this is also reflected in the fact that the current Court cites the case law of the former Court as being its own. Moreover, a tribute to the Permanent Court, when the current Court cites the case law, its case law, it does so in chronological order, it starts with the oldest judgments, always leading to a Permanent Court judgment on almost all questions because there is almost always a precedent dating from the 1920s and rather from 1922 which is the first case becoming the Permanent Court until 1940 which is the last case registered.


Donc, du point de vue juridique, il n’y a pas de continuité entre les deux juridictions, la Cour actuelle n’est pas le successeur de la Cour permanente, c’est une nouvelle juridiction. Néanmoins, d’un point de vue matériel, donc non pas formel, la Cour actuelle est en effet le successeur de l’ancienne Cour. Tout d’abord parce que le statut est identique ou presque, il n’y a que la cosmétique, de toutes petites choses qui ont été modifiées, et il a fallu aussi mettre à jour la procédure d’élection des juges, mais aussi modifier des termes et cela se voit aussi dans le fait que la Cour actuelle cite la jurisprudence de l’ancienne Cour comment étant la sienne propre. D’ailleurs, un hommage à la Cour permanente, lorsque la Cour actuelle cite la jurisprudence, sa jurisprudence, elle le fait en ordre chronologique, elle commence avec les arrêts les plus anciens aboutissant toujours à mettre en tête de la citation sur presque toutes les questions un arrêt de la Cour permanente parce qu’il y a presque toujours un précédent qui date de l’époque de 1920 et plutôt de 1922 qui est la première affaire devenant la Cour permanente jusqu’en 1940 qui est la dernière affaire inscrite.
== Personal competence ==
The term "competence" always means a legal power to do something. On the other hand, questions of jurisdiction and admissibility are of particular importance in courts. A political body is often and easily led to believe that it can talk and treat everyone. A legal body cannot ignore the limits and limitations imposed on its competence. There is a nuance between "limit" and "limit", the "limit" being something inherent, and the "limitation" is something that is voluntarily imposed from the outside.


== Compétence personnelle ==
The judge knows that he is not allowed to talk about everything he wants, even if only because he is there to apply the law and nothing else, at least in principle. By the "principle", it is not that he usurps his powers, it is that sometimes there are unusual functions that the judge may be granted, in particular to judgments ex aequo et bono under Article 38§2 of the Statute. The International Court, at least since 1920, has never been allowed to rule in pure fairness, but the Statute would allow it to do so. But this would go beyond the applicable positive law.


Le terme « compétence » signifie toujours un pouvoir juridique de faire quelque chose. D’autre part, les questions de compétence et de recevabilité revêtent une importance particulièrement aiguisée dans les juridictions. Un corps politique est souvent et aisément porté à croire qu’il peut parler et traiter de tous. Un corps juridique ne saurait méconnaitre les limites et les limitations imposées à sa compétence. Il y a une nuance entre « limite » et « limite », la « limite » étant quelque chose d’inhérent, et la « limitation » est quelque chose d’imposé volontairement par l’extérieur.
These are issues of great importance because applying the law also means applying the limits that the law sets for the judicial function. It would be that not properly applying the law that ventures into areas that are not covered by the jurisdiction to do. That is why the International Court of Justice has an important part of the case law devoted to questions of jurisdiction and admissibility, perhaps 30% to 35% of the case law is devoted to it, there are huge judgments of several hundred pages which only deal with these preliminary questions - can it be expressed on the merits - so there are battles of proceedings upstream to determine exactly how far the Court can express itself, or even not.


Le juge sait qu’il n’est pas autorisé à parler de tout ce qu’il veut, ne fusse déjà que parce qu’il est là afin d’appliquer le droit et rien d’autre, en tout cas en principe. Par le « principe », ce n’est pas qu’il usurpe ses pouvoirs, c’est que parfois il y a des fonctions inhabituelles que le juge peut se voir octroyé notamment aux jugements ex aequo et bono selon l’article 38§2 du Statut. La Cour internationale, en tout cas depuis 1920, n’a jamais reçu l’autorisation de statuer en pure équité, mais le statut le lui permettrait. Mais cela irait au-delà du droit positif applicable.
With regard to jurisdiction, there are the three main grounds, namely personal, material and consensual jurisdiction.


Ce sont des questions d’une grande importance parce qu’appliquer le droit c’est aussi appliquer les limites que le droit prévoit à la fonction judiciaire. Ce serait que de ne pas appliquer correctement le droit que s’aventurer dans des domaines qui ne sont pas couverts par la compétence de faire. C’est la raison pour laquelle la Cour internationale de justice a un volet important de la jurisprudence consacrée à des questions de compétences et de recevabilité, peut être 30% à 35% de la jurisprudence y est consacré, il y a d’énormes arrêts de plusieurs centaines de pages qui ne portent que sur ces questions préliminaires – est-ce qu’il est possible de s’exprimer sur le fond – il y a donc des batailles de procédures en amont afin de déterminer quelle est exactement l’ampleur dans laquelle la Cour pourra s’exprimer, voire, ne pourra pas s’exprimer.
Personal jurisdiction in the ICJ means, in contentious proceedings, that only States may be parties to a case before the Court. You have to be a State in order to be able to appear before the Court, either as plaintiff or defendant. This is also true for so-called "incidental" proceedings, here again, it is necessary to be a State in order to be able to intervene before the Court within the meaning of Articles 62 or 63 of the Statute.


En ce qui concerne la compétence, il y a les trois chefs principaux, à savoir la compétence personnelle, matérielle et consensuelle.
What is an incidental procedure? Imagination is an important weapon of the lawyer, a lawyer is not a good lawyer if he is simply someone who knows the paragraphs well in a dry and uninspired way. Imagination is not only very important because we are sometimes confronted with entirely new and unexpected questions, and we must be able to imagine arguments quickly enough to be powerful enough to convince without having been able to prepare ourselves at length. The terms mean what they mean, when we say "incident", it means something. An incidence is something that is grafted onto something else, it is an incident in relation to something main, just as the seat is grafted onto the main and that is why it is separated by commas to indicate the mental excursion. These proceedings we are talking about are proceedings that are grafted onto a case already before the Court. Two States have a dispute before the Court on any issue, another State considers itself concerned by this legal issue because it is also affected by the dispute and is also a party to the treaty governing the issue. Since the procedure has already been initiated, it is possible, under a series of conditions, to intervene, i.e. open an incise, a lateral procedure in order to be heard. This means that it would be possible to submit procedural documents and plead before the Court. This is an incident of procedure, the main proceedings are taking its course and there are small apartheids with, for example, the intervention of a third State, a request for the indication of provisional measures to ensure that the subject matter of the dispute is protected and that the defendant does not resort to attitudes that would have the effect of completely sterilising the utility of the final judgment once it has been delivered. This means that a procedure before the Court can be enriched like a molecule of a whole series of lateral arms, tentacles that have complicated it and met the demands of justice.


La compétence personnelle, à la CIJ, cela signifie, dans la procédure contentieuse, que seuls les États peuvent être partis à une affaire devant la Cour. Il faut être un État afin de pouvoir ester devant la Cour, en tant que demandeur ou défendeur. Cela est vrai aussi pour les procédures dites « incidentes », là encore, il faut être un État afin de pouvoir intervenir devant la Cour au sens des articles 62 ou 63 du statut.
== Material competence ==


Qu’est-ce qu’une procédure incidente ? L’imagination est une arme importante du juriste, un juriste n’est pas un bon juriste s’il est simplement quelqu’un qui connaît bien les paragraphes de manière sèche et non inspirée. L’imagination est non seulement très importante parce qu’on est confronté parfois à des questions entièrement nouvelles et inattendues, et il faut pouvoir imaginer des argumentations assez rapidement qui soient suffisamment percutantes pour convaincre sans avoir pu se préparer longuement. Les termes signifient ce qu’ils signifient, lorsqu’on dit « incident », cela évoque quelque chose. Une incidence est quelque chose qui vient se greffer sur autre chose, c’est un incident par rapport à quelque chose de principal, tout comme l’assise est greffée sur le principal et c’est la raison pour laquelle elle est séparée par des virgules afin de signaler l’excursion mentale. Ces procédures dont nous sommes en train de parler sont des procédures qui sont greffées sur une affaire déjà portée devant la Cour. Deux États ont un litige devant la Cour sur une question quelconque, un autre État estime est concerné par cette question juridique parce qu’étant également affecté par le litige et étant aussi partie au traité qui régit la question. La procédure étant déjà initiée, il est possible, moyennant une série de conditions, intervenir, c’est-à-dire ouvrir une incise, une procédure latérale afin de se faire entendre. Cela signifie qu’il serait possible de soumettre des pièces de procédure et de plaider devant la Cour. C’est un incident de procédure, la procédure principale prend son court et il y a des petits apartés avec par exemple l’intervention d’un État tiers, une demande en indication de mesures conservatoires afin de faire en sorte que l’objet du litige soit protégé et que la partie défenderesse ne recourt pas à des attitudes qui auraient pour effet de stériliser complètement l’utilité de l’arrêt final une fois qu’il l’aura rendu. Cela veut dire qu’une procédure devant la Cour peut être enrichie comme une molécule de toute une série de bras latéraux, de tentacules qui l’a compliqué et répondu à des exigences de justice.
With regard to material competence, there must be a dispute, it must be of a legal nature and, in principle, it must concern the application or interpretation of norms of international law.


== Compétence matérielle ==
== Consensual competence ==
Consensual jurisdiction is the most important and controversial jurisdiction. It is rare for the Court to have to consider whether an entity appearing before it is a State or not. When Germany presents itself and Italy is on the other side, the Court will not ask itself whether Germany is a State and whether Italy is a State, it would, moreover, be, if it did, seriously discourteous. It is therefore very rare for this question to arise, but it may arise, it may arise mainly in order to determine whether a State is a party to the Statute or not; which is not an absolute condition for remaining before the Court, but if a State is not a party to the Statute, there are stricter conditions for going before the Court. Whether a State is a party to the Statute of the Court, which is a treaty, can be a sometimes sensitive issue. Sometimes there are difficulties.


En ce qui concerne les compétences matérielles, il faut qu’il existe un différend, celui-ci doit être de nature juridique et en principe, celui-ci doit porter sur l’application ou l’interprétation de normes de droit international.
The problem arises for the Court when events occur that do not require prior action by the United Nations. There may be cases of State succession and it is not known whether there is continuity of the former State or whether there is succession. If it is not a new State, if it is not a State session, but a continuity, then, legally, the new State is considered to be the same as the old one and therefore it does not need to join. When Russia came on the international scene and the former USSR ceased to exist, it was considered that there was State continuity, Russia being the successor of the USSR, it is not a new State, there is legal identity between the two. So Russia was automatically a member of the United Nations, in other words, it remained a member of the Security Council, otherwise it would have had to apply for a new accession to the Charter and this could happen for the Statute.


== Compétence consensuelle ==
In the case of Russia, this is very clear, because everyone has accepted continuity. In other cases, knowing whether a State is a successor or a continuator poses problems because there are very divergent views and the criteria in international law are not entirely clear. In other words, and to be correct, it is combined with a lot of politics and when it is combined with a lot of politics, the legal criteria are not clear. This is the case with Serbia. Whether Serbia was a continuator or not in relation to the former Federal and Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia is an issue that has divided the United Nations for years. The link between the two was a little weaker than Russia's with the USSR and the interests were not the same. There were not the atomic agreements that had to be passed from the USSR to Russia without interruption, there was no seat for the great power on the Security Council. For Serbia, it was difficult to know for years; the Court was confronted with this thorny issue in the case of the Bosnia genocide against Serbia, because it was not known whether Serbia could be a defendant before the Court. It did not meet the conditions to remain before the Court if it was not a party to the Statute, so it had to be a party to the Statute to be a defendant. But it was a party to the Statute only if it was a continuing State of the federal and socialist republic. It was not clear. That is the main hypothesis. It is not the status of a State, actually, but rather the status of a party to the Statute that may give rise to serious doubts.


La compétence consensuelle est la compétence la plus importante et la plus controversée. Il est rare que la Cour ait à considérer si une entité qui se présente devant elle est un État ou pas. Lors que l’Allemagne se présente et que l’Italie est de l’autre côté, la Cour ne se posera pas la question de savoir si l’Allemagne est un État et si l’Italie est un État, ce serait d’ailleurs, si elle le faisait, gravement discourtois. Il est donc très rare que cette question se pose, mais elle peut se poser, elle peut se poser surtout afin de savoir si un État est parti au Statut ou ne l’est pas ; ce qui n’est d’ailleurs pas une condition absolue afin de rester devant la Cour mais, si un État n’est pas parti au Statut, il y a des conditions plus strictes pour passer devant la Cour. Savoir si un État est parti au Statut de la Cour qui est un traité peut être une question parfois délicate. Il y a parfois des difficultés.
It is a specificity that the procedure before the international courts requires the consent of the parties to the dispute for the court in question to have jurisdiction. It is not only the ICJ that is concerned, but all international tribunals. The reason is to be found in the sovereignty of States. The fact that the specific consent of litigants is required for a court to settle their disputes considerably changes the legal situation prevailing in international law compared to that found in domestic law. Under domestic law, the State has for some time prided itself on providing its litigants with available and effective remedies, and when it fails to do so, the State is slapped on the wrists, at least in Europe by the European Court of Human Rights. In international cases, and particularly in ICJ cases, no State is obliged to submit to its jurisdiction, except when it has given its consent.


Le problème se pose à la Cour lorsqu’il arrive des événements qui ne suscitent pas une action préalable des Nations Unies. Il peut y avoir des cas de succession d’État et on ne sait pas s’il y a continuité de l’ancien État ou s’il y a succession. Si ce n’est pas un État nouveau, si ce n’est pas une session d’État, mais une continuité, alors, juridiquement, le nouvel État est considéré comme étant le même que l’ancien et donc il n’a pas besoin d’adhérer. Lorsque la Russie est venue sur la scène internationale et que l’ancienne URSS a cessé d’exister, il a été considéré qu’il y avait une continuité d’État, la Russie étant le continuateur de l’URSS, ce n’est pas un État nouveau, il y a identité juridique entre les deux. Ce qui fait donc que la Russie était automatiquement membre des Nations Unies, elle la restait en d’autres termes, elle restait également au Conseil de sécurité, sinon elle aurait dû demander une nouvelle adhésion à la Charte et cela peut se présenter pour le Statut.
There are very different ways of expressing this consent, that consent is a rich and subtle matter, sometimes this consent is quite implicit, but the Court, nevertheless, verifies it with a certain meticulousness. It is a question of its credibility, the Court knows very well that if it does broad and bold things that displease States, States will desert it, because in the end, when you can consent to go before a court, you can also not consent, and when the court does not like it, because its case law would be too adventurous, for example, the choice will be not to go there. Ultimately, if his competence has been recognised, we will take advantage of the free choice of means and the substitute to escape as quickly as possible from his asphyxiating wings. The Court is very aware of this and is therefore attentive to the element of consent, avoiding offending or adventurous jurisprudence.


Pour le cas de la Russie, cela est très clair, car tout le monde a accepté la continuité. Dans d’autres cas, savoir si un État est continuateur ou successeur pose des problèmes parce qu’il y a des vues très divergentes et les critères en droit international ne sont pas tout à fait clairs. En d’autres termes et pour être correcte, cela est mâtiné de beaucoup de politique et quand cela est mâtiné de beaucoup de politique, les critères juridiques ne sont pas clairs. C’est le cas de la Serbie. Savoir si la Serbie était continuateur ou pas par rapport à l’ancienne république fédérative et socialiste de Yougoslavie est une question qui a divisé pendant des années au sein des Nations Unies. Le lien entre les deux était un peu moins fort que celui de la Russie avec l’URSS et les intérêts n’étaient pas les mêmes. Il n’y avait pas les accords atomiques qu’il fallait faire passer de l’URSS à la Russie sans discontinuité, il n’y avait pas le siège de la grande puissance au Conseil de sécurité. Pour la Serbie, cela était difficile de le savoir pendant des années ; la Cour a été confrontée à cette question épineuse dans l’affaire du génocide Bosnie contre Serbie, parce qu’on ne savait pas si la Serbie pouvait être un défendeur devant la Cour. Elle ne remplissait pas les conditions pour rester devant la Cour si elle n’était pas partie au Statut, elle devait donc être partie au Statut pour être défendeur. Mais elle était partie au Statut seulement si elle était un État continuateur de la république fédérative et socialiste. Cela n’était pas clair. Voilà l’hypothèse principale. Ce n’est non pas la qualité d’État à vrai dire, mais plutôt la qualité de partie au Statut qui peut prêter à de graves doutes.
How can this consent be expressed? There are two main modalities that are purely descriptive, but have a great legal impact. It is possible to express this consent either before a dispute arises or after a dispute has arisen. This is a distinction that is not in itself legal, but purely descriptive between "before" and "after", there is no legal difference in the sense that the result is the same, the Court has jurisdiction in both cases. But there is a significant political-psychological and also legal dispute between these two categories. When a State agrees to submit to the jurisdiction of the Court before a concrete dispute arises, a State does not know the dispute to which it may be a party in the future. There is a blindfolded, empty engagement without knowing what the state is going to be consumed on. It is therefore a very strong form of commitment for a State, especially since the extent of the commitment is for a series of disputes that are not only unpredictable, but also multiple. Disputes that may arise in the future.


C’est une spécificité que la procédure devant les tribunaux internationaux qu’il faille le consentement des parties au litige pour que le tribunal en question soit compétent. Ce n’est pas seulement la CIJ qui est concernée, mais tous les tribunaux internationaux. La raison est à trouver dans la souveraineté des États. Le fait qu’il faille le consentement spécifique des justiciables pour qu’un tribunal puisse trancher leurs différends modifie considérablement la situation juridique qui prévaut en droit international par rapport à celle que l’on trouve en droit interne. En droit interne, l’État se targue depuis un certain temps d’assurer à ses justiciables des voies de recours disponibles et efficaces, et lorsqu’il ne le fait pas, l’État se fait taper sur les doigts, en tout cas en Europe par la Cour européenne des droits de l’Homme. Dans les affaires internationales, et singulièrement à la CIJ, aucun État n’est obligé à se soumettre à sa compétence, sauf quand il a donné son consentement.
Where, on the other hand, and by contrast, a State commits itself after a dispute has arisen, the State accepts the Court's jurisdiction only in respect of that specific dispute. The extent of acceptance or consent differs significantly in both cases.


Il y a des manières très différentes d’exprimer ce consentement, que le consentement est une matière riche et subtile, parfois ce consentement est assez implicite, mais la Cour, néanmoins, le vérifie avec une certaine méticulosité. Il en va de sa crédibilité, la Cour sait très bien que si elle fait des choses larges et hardies qui déplaisent aux États, les États vont la déserter, car en définitive lorsqu’on peut consentir pour aller devant un tribunal, on peut aussi ne pas consentir, et lorsque le tribunal ne plait pas, parce que sa jurisprudence serait trop aventureuse par exemple, le choix sera de ne pas y aller. À la limite, si sa compétence a été reconnue, on va se prévaloir du libre choix des moyens et du succédané pour échapper au plus vite de ses ailes asphyxiantes. La Cour est très consciente de cela et est donc attentive à l’élément du consentement, elle évite une jurisprudence heurtée ou aventureuse.
In each of these categories, there are two ways to express consent. Two ways of expressing it before the dispute arises and two ways of expressing it about a concrete dispute that has already crystallized.


Comment peut-on exprimer ce consentement ? Il y a deux grandes modalités qui sont purement descriptives, mais qui ont un grand impact juridique. Il est possible d’exprimer ce consentement soit avant qu’un différend ne naisse, soit après qu’un différend sera nait. Il s’agit d’une distinction qui n’est pas en soi juridique, mais purement descriptive entre « avant » et « après », il n’y a pas de différence juridique dans le sens où le résultat est le même, la Cour est compétente dans les deux cas. Mais il y a un différend notable politico-psychologique et aussi juridique entre ces deux catégories. Lorsqu’un État accepte de se soumettre à la compétence de la Cour avant la naissance d’un différend concret, un État ne connaît pas le différend auquel il pourrait être parti à l’avenir. Il y a un engagement les yeux bandés, dans le vide sans savoir à quelle sauce l’État va être consommé. C’est donc une forme d’engagement très forte pour un État, d’autant plus que l’ampleur de l’engagement est pour une série de différends non seulement pas prévisible, mais aussi multiple. Des différends qui pourront survenir à l’avenir.
Before birth, a State accepts the jurisdiction of the Court either by agreements and treaties, general agreements or special compromises, and the State is then bound by the mechanisms provided for under Article 36§1. Article 36 concerns the consensual jurisdiction of the ICJ, it is the sedes materiae that we are currently dealing with.


Lorsqu’en revanche et par contraste, un État s’engage après la naissance d’un différend, l’État accepte la compétence de la Cour uniquement pour ce différend concret. L’ampleur de l’acceptation ou du consentement diffère significativement dans les deux cas.
There are very different ways of expressing this consent, that consent is a rich and subtle matter, sometimes this consent is quite implicit, but the Court, nevertheless, verifies it with a certain meticulousness. It is a question of its credibility, the Court knows very well that if it does broad and bold things that displease States, States will desert it, because in the end, when you can consent to go before a court, you can also not consent, and when the court does not like it, because its case law would be too adventurous, for example, the choice will be not to go there. Ultimately, if his competence has been recognised, we will take advantage of the free choice of means and the substitute to escape as quickly as possible from his asphyxiating wings. The Court is very aware of this and is therefore attentive to the element of consent, avoiding offending or adventurous jurisprudence.


Dans chacune de ces catégories, il y a deux manières d’exprimer le consentement. Deux manières de l’exprimer avant la naissance du différend et deux manières de l’exprimer à propos d’un différend concret déjà cristallisé.
How can this consent be expressed? There are two main modalities that are purely descriptive, but have a great legal impact. It is possible to express this consent either before a dispute arises or after a dispute has arisen. This is a distinction that is not in itself legal, but purely descriptive between "before" and "after", there is no legal difference in the sense that the result is the same, the Court has jurisdiction in both cases. But there is a significant political-psychological and also legal dispute between these two categories. When a State agrees to submit to the jurisdiction of the Court There are also, independently of the general or special agreements that can be concluded, arbitration clauses. These are treaty commitments, but they are included in treaties whose purpose is not the settlement of disputes. General or special agreements are agreements on the settlement of disputes in which it is provided that the Court will have jurisdiction over a particular aspect or dispute. An arbitration clause is a clause inserted in a treaty whose object is not the settlement of disputes, but any other object. This may be the protection of the environment, customs duties or otherwise, a clause is inserted inside for the settlement of disputes providing that if there will be differences in the interpretation or application of this Agreement, the Court will have jurisdiction by means of certain conditions which may be specified.


Avant la naissance, un État accepte la compétence de la Cour soit par des accords et des traités, accords généraux ou compromis spéciaux, et l’État est engagé alors en vertu des mécanismes prévus en vertu de l’article 36§1. L’article 36 a trait à la compétence consensuelle de la CIJ, c’est la sedes materiae qui nous occupe présentement.
There are either dispute settlement agreements or arbitration clauses.


Il y a aussi indépendamment des accords généraux ou spéciaux qu’il est possible de conclure, les clauses compromissoires. Ce sont des engagements conventionnels, mais insérés dans des traités dont l’objet n’est pas celui du règlement des différends. Les accords généraux ou spéciaux sont des accords sur le règlement des différends dans le cadre desquels est prévu que la Cour sera compétente pour tel ou tel aspect ou pour tel ou tel différend. La clause compromissoire est une clause insérée dans un traité dont l’objet n’est pas celui du règlement des différends, mais n’importe quel autre objet. Cela peut être la protection de l’environnement, des tarifs douaniers ou autre, est insérée une clause à l’intérieur pour le règlement des différends prévoyant que s’il y aura des différences sur l’interprétation ou l’application du présent accord, la Cour sera compétente moyen certaines conditions qu’il est possible préciser.
Article 36§2 refers to the optional clause. It is a system of unilateral declarations that States can undertake and that creates a network of competence between all States that have made such a declaration. We are talking about the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court, because we cannot say that there is jurisdiction without consent, we simply mean that when we have undertaken in this way, it is possible to be unilaterally cited before the Court on the basis of these titles of jurisdiction such as, for example, unilateral declarations of optional clauses.


Il y a soit des accords sur le règlement des différends, soit des clauses compromissoires.
If we look at the means of engaging after a dispute has arisen, it is the special compromise on a particular case, so it is an agreement that asks the Court to deal with a particular dispute that States specify in their agreement. For example, the Court will be asked to draw the border between Burkina Faso and Mali by specifying the sector in which the two States wish the Court to draw that border, or it will be the extended forum, which may have several meanings. The main meaning of the extended forum is either informal consent, i.e. a State consents to the jurisdiction of the Court, but outside all other traditional avenues as in a letter, or jurisdiction is achieved if a State does not oppose the applicant's allegation of jurisdiction. A plaintiff may bring an action before the Court, there is no evidence of jurisdiction, but the defendant does not object. Before a concrete dispute arises, a State does not know the dispute to which it may be a party in the future. There is a blindfolded, empty engagement without knowing what the state is going to be consumed on. It is therefore a very strong form of commitment for a State, especially since the extent of the commitment is for a series of disputes that are not only unpredictable, but also multiple. Disputes that may arise in the future.


L’article 36§2 renvoi à la clause facultative. Il s’agit d’un système de déclaration unilatéral que les États peuvent entreprendre et qui crée un réseau de compétence entre tous les États qui ont fait une telle déclaration. On parle de la compétence obligatoire de la Cour, parce qu’on ne peut pas dire qu’il y ait une compétence sans consentement, on veut simplement dire que lorsqu’on s’est engagé de cette manière-là, il est possible d’être unilatéralement cité devant la Cour sur la base de ces titres de compétences comme, par exemple, les déclarations unilatérales clauses facultatives.
Where, on the other hand, and by contrast, a State commits itself after a dispute has arisen, the State accepts the Court's jurisdiction only in respect of that specific dispute. The extent of acceptance or consent differs significantly in both cases.


Si on se penche sur les moyens de s’engager après la naissance d’un différend, il s’agit du compromis spécial portant sur une affaire déterminée, c’est donc un accord qui demande à la Cour de traiter un différend déterminé que les États précisent dans leur accord. Par exemple, on demandera à la Cour de tracer la frontière entre le Burkina Faso et le Mali en précisant le secteur dans lequel les deux États souhaitent la Cour tracer cette limite, ou alors, il s’agit du for prorogé qui peut avoir plusieurs sens. Le sens principal du for prorogé est soit un consentement informel, c’est-à-dire qu’un État consent à la compétence de la Cour, mais en dehors de toutes les autres avenues classiques comme par une lettre, soit on abouti à la compétence si un État ne s’oppose pas à l’allégation de compétence du demandeur. Un demandeur peut saisir la Cour, il n’y a pas de titre de compétence, mais le défendeur n’objecte pas.
In each of these categories, there are two ways to express consent. Two ways to express it before the dispute arises and two


= Annexes =
= Annexes =

Version actuelle datée du 11 septembre 2021 à 12:00

Palais de la Paix, siège de la CIJ à La Haye.

The peaceful settlement of inter-State disputes 
[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

Article détaillé : Le règlement pacifique des différends internationaux.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) sits in The Hague and is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and of public international law in general. The Court has global legitimacy because it is a World Court, composed of judges from all countries of the world as set out in Article 9 of the Statute of the Court, and in addition, the Court is generalist in matters of public international law and this quality is the only one it possesses. By "generalist" we mean the fact that disputes and disputes of any kind between two or more States can be brought before the International Court of Justice. "Any" means that it can cover any subject of public international law: it can be maritime delimitation, immunity issues or whaling in Antarctic waters, territorial delimitation issues or the seizure of documents concerning persons protected by immunity.

There is no other international court with such general jurisdiction. Any other court will have limited material jurisdiction, sometimes also personal and limited. If we take the Law of the Sea Court with its headquarters in Hamburg, it deals with the law of the sea and is a conventional court under the Montego Bay Convention on the Law of the Sea and ensures the application and interpretation of that Convention. As this convention concerns the whole of the law of the sea, it is a fairly broad competence, but nevertheless limited, we cannot go to a dispute concerning immunities before a court of the law of the sea, for that to happen, we must go to the International Court of Justice. On the other hand, a dispute concerning the law of the sea may well be brought before the International Court.

When an arbitral tribunal is continued, it is quite possible to mandate arbitrators to deal with any question of international law or even any other issue, but the arbitration is limited in time, but also in personal extension. In time because it deals with a case or a series of cases and it disappears unlike the International Court of Justice, and the arbitral tribunal is also limited as to the parties because generally, arbitration deals with a dispute between two States, and the arbitral tribunal is constituted by the two States in dispute and constitutes the common body. Third states may not intervene in proceedings before the arbitrator, as the arbitrator is a body of the States in dispute that have concluded the arbitration agreement.

The second remark on the International Court is whether the International Court is there to ensure the rule of law in international affairs? Is it a viable prospect to consider the International Court of Justice as a World Court? As a profession of faith, it is possible to say that the Court should do this, these are opinions on which there is no exclusive or scientific truth. The Court, as it is structured today in positive law, is as perceived by the litigants of States; its mission is, of course, to promote what was sometimes called the rule of law, but that this mission is only one part of these activities, the Court's main task and function is to settle disputes between States in such a way as to resolve the causes of tension and conflict. The resolution of the dispute is the contribution that the Court is being asked to make.

With regard to the rule of law and the settlement of disputes, not exclusively mutual, but in any case with a preponderance of one over the other and a fairly clear preponderance, in fact, is reflected in a whole series of realities. First of all, in the jurisprudence of the Court, the Court has declared itself for a very long time, since the distant past of the Permanent Court of International Justice. As early as the case law of the Permanent Court of International Justice, in a series of cases, the most famous of which is probably the free zones case, which was among others the Pays de Gex free zones at the end of the 1920s, the Court emphasized, by writing a sentence that has gone down in history, as what "a substitute for direct and friendly settlement between the parties". The term "substitute" means that the Court perceives itself as being subsidiary to the direct settlement is amicable between the parties.

If the parties in dispute can agree directly with each other, then the ICJ can dismiss the case and strike it from its list, it considers that the direct agreement between the parties is better than a judgment that it can give itself. The reason is that, first, when the parties agree on themselves and feel that they have not been condemned to something, but have reached an agreement, they live better with the agreement and it is more likely to contribute to a definitive settlement and to purge the dispute; and this is the great goal in international relations where tensions are already high. But also and in addition, the agreement between the parties means that the parties have been able to consider the whole of their dispute in all its psychological, social, economic, political and legal dimensions; while the International Court, for its part, will reduce the dispute to its legal aspects, which are the only ones it can deal with without any excess of power. The Court is careful not to exceed its powers. It is in a more global and balanced agreement, not only on an aspect such as the tip of the iceberg with all the part that remains submerged dangerous and sharp for the ships that would venture into its waters. It is possible to make an overall work is to consider the whole iceberg when you get it right.

It is for this reason that the Court claims to be a substitute, this jurisprudence is continuous, it has been constant since the 1920s, i.e. since the very beginning of the Permanent Court. What has just been said is that in international relations, the preference is to settle disputes by creating new law because reaching an agreement between the States in dispute consists in creating new standards, seeking new balances, finding viable compromises, it is a function of legislation. Disputes are settled not by the application of existing law, but by the creation of new law. In both cases, the dispute is resolved to some extent within the sphere of law. Even if the agreement is a legislative and therefore a political function, the law is not evacuated because the result obtained, if there is a result and disputes are resolved, if there is such an agreement, the result recorded in the agreement is consolidated in legal terms, but by amending existing law rather than by applying pre-existing law. The consequence is that the rule of law does not have the same value in international cases as in domestic cases. When in domestic cases, there is a contract, we will go before the judge, it will not necessarily be through the creation of new rights that we will settle it. In international cases, it will be more than otherwise, and therefore the pre-eminence of law being weaker, it also explains why the Court itself does not consider it necessary to change its case law on the substitute.

It is important to see this, because it leads to the understanding that the International Court of Justice is above all a court of justice of services. It is a Court that provides services, there is no compulsory jurisdiction that would be incompatible with their sovereignty, there is not even an obligation to go through the Court, there is freedom of choice of means, it is possible to prefer negotiation, to prefer mediation or to establish arbitration, the Court is open, but it is perfectly possible not to go to the Court of Justice. It also relativizes the rule of law since there is the choice of settling the dispute through political or legal means. If these disputes are to be resolved by political means, the rule of law is again dismissed. Once the Court is seized, it considers itself to be subsidiary to any agreement it may wish to reach. The Court always gives States the possibility to negotiate directly, for example by suspending the procedure and giving the possibility to seek a solution to disputes directly and to return to the Court if the solution is not found.

La Cour internationale de Justice : généralités et compétences[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

General information[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

The Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Court of Justice? What is this all about? It is not the same Court because it has a different name, and because if it were the same, it would have the same name. What is he doing? This is above all a historical point.

The Permanent Court was independent of the League of Nations, it is not an organ of the League of Nations, but it was financed by the budget of the League of Nations. The International Court of Justice, in Article 7 of the Charter, says that it is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, but Article 7 in paragraph 1 is not precise in terms of technical legal matters because obviously an International Court of Justice, and above all the organ of the parties to the Statute of the Court. It is possible to be a party to the Statute of the Court without being a member of the United Nations, there are also States Parties to the Court, but not members of the United Nations, but which are part of the "ICJ community", so it is more than the main organ of the United Nations, it is mainly the organ of States Parties to the Statute.

The Permanent Court was created in 1920 at the time of the League of Nations, it was provided for in Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations which provided for this Court. It had practically the same missions as the current Court and was dissolved in 1948 for reasons related to technical problems and not to a disallowance by the Permanent Court; on the contrary, it was a highly successful Court since the Permanent Court's judgments were all executed from 1920 to 1946. Having all the stops executed in such a turbulent period is a good assessment. It was dissolved in 1946 for technical reasons. The International Court of Justice was created by taking over almost word for word the Statute of the Permanent Court.

So, from a legal point of view, there is no continuity between the two jurisdictions, the current Court is not the successor of the Permanent Court, it is a new jurisdiction. Nevertheless, from a material, and therefore not a formal, point of view, the current Court is indeed the successor of the former Court. First of all, because the statute is almost identical, only cosmetics, very small things have been modified, and it has also been necessary to update the procedure for electing judges, but also to modify terms, and this is also reflected in the fact that the current Court cites the case law of the former Court as being its own. Moreover, a tribute to the Permanent Court, when the current Court cites the case law, its case law, it does so in chronological order, it starts with the oldest judgments, always leading to a Permanent Court judgment on almost all questions because there is almost always a precedent dating from the 1920s and rather from 1922 which is the first case becoming the Permanent Court until 1940 which is the last case registered.

Personal competence[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

The term "competence" always means a legal power to do something. On the other hand, questions of jurisdiction and admissibility are of particular importance in courts. A political body is often and easily led to believe that it can talk and treat everyone. A legal body cannot ignore the limits and limitations imposed on its competence. There is a nuance between "limit" and "limit", the "limit" being something inherent, and the "limitation" is something that is voluntarily imposed from the outside.

The judge knows that he is not allowed to talk about everything he wants, even if only because he is there to apply the law and nothing else, at least in principle. By the "principle", it is not that he usurps his powers, it is that sometimes there are unusual functions that the judge may be granted, in particular to judgments ex aequo et bono under Article 38§2 of the Statute. The International Court, at least since 1920, has never been allowed to rule in pure fairness, but the Statute would allow it to do so. But this would go beyond the applicable positive law.

These are issues of great importance because applying the law also means applying the limits that the law sets for the judicial function. It would be that not properly applying the law that ventures into areas that are not covered by the jurisdiction to do. That is why the International Court of Justice has an important part of the case law devoted to questions of jurisdiction and admissibility, perhaps 30% to 35% of the case law is devoted to it, there are huge judgments of several hundred pages which only deal with these preliminary questions - can it be expressed on the merits - so there are battles of proceedings upstream to determine exactly how far the Court can express itself, or even not.

With regard to jurisdiction, there are the three main grounds, namely personal, material and consensual jurisdiction.

Personal jurisdiction in the ICJ means, in contentious proceedings, that only States may be parties to a case before the Court. You have to be a State in order to be able to appear before the Court, either as plaintiff or defendant. This is also true for so-called "incidental" proceedings, here again, it is necessary to be a State in order to be able to intervene before the Court within the meaning of Articles 62 or 63 of the Statute.

What is an incidental procedure? Imagination is an important weapon of the lawyer, a lawyer is not a good lawyer if he is simply someone who knows the paragraphs well in a dry and uninspired way. Imagination is not only very important because we are sometimes confronted with entirely new and unexpected questions, and we must be able to imagine arguments quickly enough to be powerful enough to convince without having been able to prepare ourselves at length. The terms mean what they mean, when we say "incident", it means something. An incidence is something that is grafted onto something else, it is an incident in relation to something main, just as the seat is grafted onto the main and that is why it is separated by commas to indicate the mental excursion. These proceedings we are talking about are proceedings that are grafted onto a case already before the Court. Two States have a dispute before the Court on any issue, another State considers itself concerned by this legal issue because it is also affected by the dispute and is also a party to the treaty governing the issue. Since the procedure has already been initiated, it is possible, under a series of conditions, to intervene, i.e. open an incise, a lateral procedure in order to be heard. This means that it would be possible to submit procedural documents and plead before the Court. This is an incident of procedure, the main proceedings are taking its course and there are small apartheids with, for example, the intervention of a third State, a request for the indication of provisional measures to ensure that the subject matter of the dispute is protected and that the defendant does not resort to attitudes that would have the effect of completely sterilising the utility of the final judgment once it has been delivered. This means that a procedure before the Court can be enriched like a molecule of a whole series of lateral arms, tentacles that have complicated it and met the demands of justice.

Material competence[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

With regard to material competence, there must be a dispute, it must be of a legal nature and, in principle, it must concern the application or interpretation of norms of international law.

Consensual competence[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

Consensual jurisdiction is the most important and controversial jurisdiction. It is rare for the Court to have to consider whether an entity appearing before it is a State or not. When Germany presents itself and Italy is on the other side, the Court will not ask itself whether Germany is a State and whether Italy is a State, it would, moreover, be, if it did, seriously discourteous. It is therefore very rare for this question to arise, but it may arise, it may arise mainly in order to determine whether a State is a party to the Statute or not; which is not an absolute condition for remaining before the Court, but if a State is not a party to the Statute, there are stricter conditions for going before the Court. Whether a State is a party to the Statute of the Court, which is a treaty, can be a sometimes sensitive issue. Sometimes there are difficulties.

The problem arises for the Court when events occur that do not require prior action by the United Nations. There may be cases of State succession and it is not known whether there is continuity of the former State or whether there is succession. If it is not a new State, if it is not a State session, but a continuity, then, legally, the new State is considered to be the same as the old one and therefore it does not need to join. When Russia came on the international scene and the former USSR ceased to exist, it was considered that there was State continuity, Russia being the successor of the USSR, it is not a new State, there is legal identity between the two. So Russia was automatically a member of the United Nations, in other words, it remained a member of the Security Council, otherwise it would have had to apply for a new accession to the Charter and this could happen for the Statute.

In the case of Russia, this is very clear, because everyone has accepted continuity. In other cases, knowing whether a State is a successor or a continuator poses problems because there are very divergent views and the criteria in international law are not entirely clear. In other words, and to be correct, it is combined with a lot of politics and when it is combined with a lot of politics, the legal criteria are not clear. This is the case with Serbia. Whether Serbia was a continuator or not in relation to the former Federal and Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia is an issue that has divided the United Nations for years. The link between the two was a little weaker than Russia's with the USSR and the interests were not the same. There were not the atomic agreements that had to be passed from the USSR to Russia without interruption, there was no seat for the great power on the Security Council. For Serbia, it was difficult to know for years; the Court was confronted with this thorny issue in the case of the Bosnia genocide against Serbia, because it was not known whether Serbia could be a defendant before the Court. It did not meet the conditions to remain before the Court if it was not a party to the Statute, so it had to be a party to the Statute to be a defendant. But it was a party to the Statute only if it was a continuing State of the federal and socialist republic. It was not clear. That is the main hypothesis. It is not the status of a State, actually, but rather the status of a party to the Statute that may give rise to serious doubts.

It is a specificity that the procedure before the international courts requires the consent of the parties to the dispute for the court in question to have jurisdiction. It is not only the ICJ that is concerned, but all international tribunals. The reason is to be found in the sovereignty of States. The fact that the specific consent of litigants is required for a court to settle their disputes considerably changes the legal situation prevailing in international law compared to that found in domestic law. Under domestic law, the State has for some time prided itself on providing its litigants with available and effective remedies, and when it fails to do so, the State is slapped on the wrists, at least in Europe by the European Court of Human Rights. In international cases, and particularly in ICJ cases, no State is obliged to submit to its jurisdiction, except when it has given its consent.

There are very different ways of expressing this consent, that consent is a rich and subtle matter, sometimes this consent is quite implicit, but the Court, nevertheless, verifies it with a certain meticulousness. It is a question of its credibility, the Court knows very well that if it does broad and bold things that displease States, States will desert it, because in the end, when you can consent to go before a court, you can also not consent, and when the court does not like it, because its case law would be too adventurous, for example, the choice will be not to go there. Ultimately, if his competence has been recognised, we will take advantage of the free choice of means and the substitute to escape as quickly as possible from his asphyxiating wings. The Court is very aware of this and is therefore attentive to the element of consent, avoiding offending or adventurous jurisprudence.

How can this consent be expressed? There are two main modalities that are purely descriptive, but have a great legal impact. It is possible to express this consent either before a dispute arises or after a dispute has arisen. This is a distinction that is not in itself legal, but purely descriptive between "before" and "after", there is no legal difference in the sense that the result is the same, the Court has jurisdiction in both cases. But there is a significant political-psychological and also legal dispute between these two categories. When a State agrees to submit to the jurisdiction of the Court before a concrete dispute arises, a State does not know the dispute to which it may be a party in the future. There is a blindfolded, empty engagement without knowing what the state is going to be consumed on. It is therefore a very strong form of commitment for a State, especially since the extent of the commitment is for a series of disputes that are not only unpredictable, but also multiple. Disputes that may arise in the future.

Where, on the other hand, and by contrast, a State commits itself after a dispute has arisen, the State accepts the Court's jurisdiction only in respect of that specific dispute. The extent of acceptance or consent differs significantly in both cases.

In each of these categories, there are two ways to express consent. Two ways of expressing it before the dispute arises and two ways of expressing it about a concrete dispute that has already crystallized.

Before birth, a State accepts the jurisdiction of the Court either by agreements and treaties, general agreements or special compromises, and the State is then bound by the mechanisms provided for under Article 36§1. Article 36 concerns the consensual jurisdiction of the ICJ, it is the sedes materiae that we are currently dealing with.

There are very different ways of expressing this consent, that consent is a rich and subtle matter, sometimes this consent is quite implicit, but the Court, nevertheless, verifies it with a certain meticulousness. It is a question of its credibility, the Court knows very well that if it does broad and bold things that displease States, States will desert it, because in the end, when you can consent to go before a court, you can also not consent, and when the court does not like it, because its case law would be too adventurous, for example, the choice will be not to go there. Ultimately, if his competence has been recognised, we will take advantage of the free choice of means and the substitute to escape as quickly as possible from his asphyxiating wings. The Court is very aware of this and is therefore attentive to the element of consent, avoiding offending or adventurous jurisprudence.

How can this consent be expressed? There are two main modalities that are purely descriptive, but have a great legal impact. It is possible to express this consent either before a dispute arises or after a dispute has arisen. This is a distinction that is not in itself legal, but purely descriptive between "before" and "after", there is no legal difference in the sense that the result is the same, the Court has jurisdiction in both cases. But there is a significant political-psychological and also legal dispute between these two categories. When a State agrees to submit to the jurisdiction of the Court There are also, independently of the general or special agreements that can be concluded, arbitration clauses. These are treaty commitments, but they are included in treaties whose purpose is not the settlement of disputes. General or special agreements are agreements on the settlement of disputes in which it is provided that the Court will have jurisdiction over a particular aspect or dispute. An arbitration clause is a clause inserted in a treaty whose object is not the settlement of disputes, but any other object. This may be the protection of the environment, customs duties or otherwise, a clause is inserted inside for the settlement of disputes providing that if there will be differences in the interpretation or application of this Agreement, the Court will have jurisdiction by means of certain conditions which may be specified.

There are either dispute settlement agreements or arbitration clauses.

Article 36§2 refers to the optional clause. It is a system of unilateral declarations that States can undertake and that creates a network of competence between all States that have made such a declaration. We are talking about the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court, because we cannot say that there is jurisdiction without consent, we simply mean that when we have undertaken in this way, it is possible to be unilaterally cited before the Court on the basis of these titles of jurisdiction such as, for example, unilateral declarations of optional clauses.

If we look at the means of engaging after a dispute has arisen, it is the special compromise on a particular case, so it is an agreement that asks the Court to deal with a particular dispute that States specify in their agreement. For example, the Court will be asked to draw the border between Burkina Faso and Mali by specifying the sector in which the two States wish the Court to draw that border, or it will be the extended forum, which may have several meanings. The main meaning of the extended forum is either informal consent, i.e. a State consents to the jurisdiction of the Court, but outside all other traditional avenues as in a letter, or jurisdiction is achieved if a State does not oppose the applicant's allegation of jurisdiction. A plaintiff may bring an action before the Court, there is no evidence of jurisdiction, but the defendant does not object. Before a concrete dispute arises, a State does not know the dispute to which it may be a party in the future. There is a blindfolded, empty engagement without knowing what the state is going to be consumed on. It is therefore a very strong form of commitment for a State, especially since the extent of the commitment is for a series of disputes that are not only unpredictable, but also multiple. Disputes that may arise in the future.

Where, on the other hand, and by contrast, a State commits itself after a dispute has arisen, the State accepts the Court's jurisdiction only in respect of that specific dispute. The extent of acceptance or consent differs significantly in both cases.

In each of these categories, there are two ways to express consent. Two ways to express it before the dispute arises and two

Annexes[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

References[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

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