03-01-2010, 07:09 AM
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#2
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Member
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Delhi
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- Article 2 of the Statute presents that all judges should be "elected despite of their nationality amidst individuals of high moral character", who are either qualified for the largest judicial agency in their dwelling states or renowned as solicitors with adequate competence in worldwide law. Judicial independence is dealt expressly with in Articles 16-18. Judges of the ICJ are not allowed to contain any other post, neither proceed as counsel. Usually, the Members of the Court have their own understanding of these rules. This permits them to be engaged in out-of-door arbitration and contain professional posts also as long as there is no conflict of interest. A judge can be brushed aside only by an unanimous vote of other constituents of the Court. Despite these provisions, the independence of ICJ judges has always been questioned. For example, throughout the Nicaragua Case, the USA handed out a communiqué proposing that it could not present sensitive material to the Court because of the occurrence of judges from Eastern bloc states.
- Judges may give joint judgments or give their own distinct opinions. Decisions and Advisory Opinions are by majority and, in the happening of an identical division, the President's vote becomes decisive. Judges may furthermore give distinct dissenting opinions.
- Article 31 of the statute sets out a method whereby ad hoc judges sit on contentious situations before the Court. This scheme permits any party to a contentious case to nominate a judge of their likely that as numerous as seventeen judges may sit on one case.
- This scheme may appear odd when compared with domestic court methods, but its aim is to boost states to submit more and more cases to the Court. For example, if a state understands that it will have a judicial agent who can take part in deliberation and offer other judges local information and an understanding of the state's viewpoint, that state may be more eager to submit to the Court's jurisdiction. Although this scheme does not sit well with the judicial environment of the body, it is generally of little functional consequence. Ad hoc judges usually (but not always) vote in support of the state which nominated them and therefore cancel out each other.
- Generally, the Court is seated as full bench, but in the last fifteen years it has on ocassions sat as a chamber also. Articles 26-29 of the statute permit the Court to form smaller chambers, generally consisting of 3 or 5 judges, to hear cases. Two kinds of chambers are considered by Article 26: foremost, chambers for exceptional classes of cases, and second, the formation of ad hoc chambers to hear specific disputes. In 1993 a exceptional chamber was established, under Article 26(1) of the ICJ statute, to deal expressly with environmental affairs (although this chamber has not ever been used).
- Ad hoc chambers are more often convened. For example, chambers were utilised to hear the Gulf of Maine Case (USA v Canada).In that case, the parties made clear that they would withdraw the case except the Court nominates judges to the chambers who were acceptable to the parties. Judgments of chambers may have less authority than full Court judgments, or may weaken the correct understanding of universal worldwide regulation acquainted by a kind of cultural and legal perspectives. On the other hand, the use of chambers might boost larger recourse to the Court and therefore enhance worldwide dispute resolution.
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