International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice was established in 1945 and become the first international court; this court is the main Judicial of the United Nations and was started in 1945 by the United Nation Charter (Chamey, 1989). This Court commenced work in the year 1946 as a replacement to the then Permanent Court of International justice although it can be argued based on facts that the International Court of Justice was the first court to be started. The reason is that the International Criminal court came into force in the year 2002 when over 120 countries ratified the Rome statute and it is regulated by the Statute of the International Court of Justice (Chamey, 1989). This paper is a discussion on the International Court of Justice, ICJ; the paper further discusses the procedure of the court and concludes by looking at what is meant by an Advisory opinion.
The Court is mandated to handle a very wide range of judicial cases of different nature (Chamey, 1989). It can be said that presently this court has handled relatively few cases, but from the 1980s there has been an increase in tendency by sovereign States to use the Court majority of which has been the developing countries. However, the United States in 1968 declined to comply with the issue of compulsory jurisdiction and has since been adamant to change its position. The decisions of the International Court of Justice are enforced and implemented by a body of the UN called the Security Council. However, before these rulings are enforced they must pass the test of the UN’s five permanent members who sit in the Security Council. This implies that if one or more of these members says no, then the ruling cannot be implemented (Rossene, 2003).
The procedure of the Court
The procedure of the International court of justice is almost similar to that of the US but the only difference is that the ICJ deals with sovereign States cases. Under this court, a State may initiate judicial proceedings against another State either through a Special agreement or by submitting an application to the Court. In such a case the States are described as applicant and Defendant respectively at which point the court examines the merit of the case. Under ICJ parties to a case are represented by Lawyers known as agents as opposed to counsels in US courts (Odek, 2011).
When it comes to the deliberation of the case it is made up of two hearings which are merit and compensation. During proceedings, the court may pose questions to either of the parties, lawyers or agents after all relevant documents have been submitted to the court a week before (Odek, 2011). Therefore the procedure is the same as that of the United States only that terms used may vary for different documents and stages.
. Whenever a request has been sent to the court, it will look at it and then analyze (Churchill Ward, 1997); based on the analysis of this initial assessment the court goes ahead to decide which States and organizations would give useful information to it. Then such a state or organization is given a chance to present written or oral statements.
Advisory opinion
The advisory opinion is essential because the court relies on it to advise the UN agencies in deciding difficult legal issues that might fall under its mandate. In the context of the world court the term advisory opinion refers to the situation whereby given organizations or bodies of the United Nation find it necessary to provide the court with useful information (Churchill Ward, 1997). For example if there is a dispute on environment, the UNEP may apply to the court to be granted an opportunity to provide vital information that may help the court in deciding the case
References
Charney J. (1989). The Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. American Journal of International Law (81): 855-864.
Churchill, Ward. (1997). A Little Matter of Genocide. San Francisco: City Lights Books,
Rosenne S. (2003). The world court: what it is and how it works. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.