Some weeks in the past, Nicholas Tsagourias revealed a bit on Articles of Conflict weblog, analysing the Worldwide Court docket of Justice’s (ICJ) current advisory opinion on Israel’s practices within the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Whereas different blogposts examined the opinion in substance, Tsagourias devotes his phrases to the Court docket’s discretion. In accordance with him, compelling causes ought to have led the ICJ to reject the UN Basic Meeting’s (UNGA) request. In doing so, he adopts the arguments introduced ahead by Israel and its allies within the advisory proceedings and by Vice President Sebutinde in her dissenting opinion. Evidently, the Court docket didn’t observe any of these concerns. Actually, the ICJ caught to its self-prescribed guidelines governing judicial propriety.
This publish will assess a number of the arguments which intention at a slender studying of the ICJ’s advisory operate. Whereas Tsagourias asserts that he “will cope with the ICJ’s jurisdiction”, his arguments truly concern the Court docket’s discretion. As such, they’re topic to the Court docket’s intrinsic analysis (Artwork. 65 ICJ-Statute). But, discretion shouldn’t be perceived as a playground on which the ICJ acts because it sees match. It’s clear that “the Court docket is certain to not act in a fashion that’s opposite to judicial propriety or to its judicial character” (Akande/Tzanakopoulos). Nonetheless, drawing on earlier case regulation permits for an evaluation of the Court docket’s discretionary findings within the case at hand.