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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 May 2012
This article provides a reappraisal of the International Court of Justice's approach to jurisdiction and applicable law in Nicaragua, 25 years later. In the first phase of the proceedings arising from the US support of the activities of the Contras against the Sandinista government, the Court robustly asserted its jurisdiction despite the US reliance on its multilateral treaty reservation and the subsequent attempted modification of its Optional Clause declaration. At the same time, the Court approached the related question of applicable law with a wide, if not effusive, reliance on multilateral customary international law operating conjunctively with treaty law. The Court's dismissal of negotiations as a procedural precondition for invoking its jurisdiction in Nicaragua is contrasted with its recent findings in Georgia v. Russia.
1 See, for discussion of the Nicaragua case, Glennon, M. J., ‘Nicaragua v. United States: Constitutionality of US Modification of ICJ Jurisdiction’, (1985) 79 AJIL 682Google Scholar; Chayes, A., ‘Nicaragua, the United States and the World Court’, (1985) 85 Col LR 1445CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Norton, P., ‘The Nicaragua Case: Political Questions before the International Court of Justice’, (1987) 27 Virginia JIL 459Google Scholar; Kahn, P. W., ‘From Nuremberg to the Hague: The United States Position in Nicaragua v. United States’, (1987) 12 Yale JIL 1Google Scholar; Oda, S., ‘Reservations in the Declarations of Acceptance of the Optional Clause and the Period of Validity of those Declarations: The Effect of the Shultz Letter’, (1984) 59 BYIL 1Google Scholar; Czaplinski, W., ‘Sources of International Law in the Nicaragua Case’, (1989) 38 ICLQ 151CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mendelson, M. H., ‘The Nicaragua Case and Customary International Law’, (1989) 26 Coexistence 85Google Scholar; Charlesworth, H., ‘Customary International Law and the Nicaragua Case’, (1991) 11 Austral YBIL 1Google Scholar; Quintana, J. J., ‘The Nicaragua Case and the Denunciation of Declarations of Acceptance of the Compulsory Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice’, (1998) 11 (1)LJIL 97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tasioulas, J., ‘In Defence of Relative Normativity: Communitarian Values and the Nicaragua Case’, in Capps, P. M. and Evans, M. D. (eds.), International Law (2009), 85Google Scholar.
2 Symposium ‘Appraisals of the ICJ's Decision: Nicaragua v. United States (Merits)’, (1987) 81 AJIL 77.
3 367 UNTS 3.
4 Crawford, J., ‘The Legal Effect of Automatic Reservations to the Jurisdiction of the International Court’, (1979) 50 BYIL 63Google Scholar.
5 Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Jurisdiction and Admissibility, [1984] ICJ Rep. 392, at 404.
6 Ibid., at 412–13, para. 47.
7 Ibid., at 418, para. 59.
8 Ibid., at 420.
9 Ibid., Schwebel Dissenting, at 558, 617–28, paras. 92–116.
10 Ibid., at 419, para. 62.
11 2006 Yearbook of the International Law Commission II/2, 369, at 380.
12 Ibid., at 381.
13 [1984] ICJ Rep. 424, para. 73.
14 Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States of America), Merits, [1986] ICJ Rep. 14, at 38, para. 56.
15 Ibid., at 529–38; see also Judge Oda, ibid., at 216–19; Judge Schwebel, ibid., at 302–6.
16 Cf. ibid., at 94.
17 367 UNTS 3.
18 [1984] ICJ Rep. 428.
19 660 UNTS 195.
20 Ibid., at 427, para. 81.
21 Ibid., at 428–9, para. 83.
22 Case Concerning Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v Russian Federation), Preliminary Objections, [2011] ICJ Rep., para. 147.
23 Ibid., para. 161. But cf. Joint Dissenting Opinion of President Owada, Judges Simma, Abraham and Donoghue and Judge ad hoc Gaja, ibid. Cf. further United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran, [1908] ICJ Rep. 3, at 27, para. 51.
24 [1988] ICJ Rep. 92.
