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Intervention in the International Court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

Philip C. Jessup
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Extract

For the first time the International Court of Justice has squarely faced and ruled upon the right of a third state to intervene in a case to which two other states are parties. The litigation was the Case Concerning the Continental Shelf (Tunisia/Libyan Arab Jamahiriya), Application of Malta for Permission to Intervene, Judgment of April 14, 1981. The Court unanimously denied permission to intervene, but three judges appended separate opinions which contain matters of considerable interest.

Type
Editorial Comment
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 75 , Issue 4 , October 1981 , pp. 903 - 909
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1981

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References

1 But the question had been raised both in the Permanent Court of International Justice and in several cases in the present Court. The Court calls attention (para. 27 of the Judgment, note 2 infra) to the Fiji Application to intervene in the Nuclear Test cases ([1974] ICJ Rep. 530,535) and Libya, in particular, emphasized the views expressed by several members of the Court in individual opinions in that case. See also Hudson, M., The Permanent Court of International Justice 1920–1942, §432, at 419 ff. (1943)Google Scholar; and 1 Rosenne, S., The Law and Practice of the International Court 430 ff. (1965)Google Scholar.

2 [1981] ICJ Rep. 3.

3 ICJ, Acts and Documents Concerning the Organization of the Court, No. 3, at 85 (1977).

4 [1970] ICJ Rep. 3, 102.

5 [1980] ICJ Rep. 73.

6 See Guyomar, G., Commentaire du Règlement de la Cour Internationale de Justice: Interprétation et Pratique 456 ff. (1973)Google Scholar; and M. Hudson, supra note 1, at 423–24, esp. n.6.

7 Miller, Intervention in Proceedings Before the International Court of Justice, in 2 The Future of the International Court of Justice 550 (ed. L. Gross 1976). Miller deals also with interventions “by persons other than states,” but this interesting suggestion is outside the scope of this comment.

8 [1978] ICJ Rep. 3, para. 11.

9 Much of the situation is described in Report by the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the Mission of his Special Representative to Malta and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, UN Doc. S/14256 (Nov. 13, 1980); and see UN Docs. S/14331 and S/14332 (Jan. 16, 1981), S/14343 (Jan. 23, 1981), S/14348 (Jan. 29, 1981), S/14357 (Feb. 3, 1981), and S/14375 (Feb. 15, 1981).

After the decision of the Court rejecting its Application to intervene, Malta again asked the Security Council to deal with what it considered the fact that Libya had gone back on its undertaking to submit their dispute over the delimitation of the continental shelf to the Court. UN Press Release WS/1033, July 24, 1981, at 5.

10 [1969] ICJ Rep. 3. Tunisia and Libya are “adjacent” states, while Malta is “opposite” Libya.

11 See Delegation Report—10th Session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, March 9–April 24, 1981, New York, in U.S. Policy and Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea: Hearings Before the House Comm. on Foreign Affairs, 97th Cong., 1st Sess., App. 1, at 53 (1981).

12 Libya, in its Observations to the Court on Malta’s Application, suggested that Malta sought to be a “quasi-party.” Malta said it sought the position not of a “party” but of a “participant” (para. 12).

13 Kearney, Sources of Law and the International Court of Justice, in 2 The Future of the International Court, supra note 6, at 610, 698.

14 UN Doc. A/CONF.62/WP.10/Rev.3, at 47 (1980).

15 As at one stage of the LOS Conference Nepal argued for the protection of whales.