Good morning . My name is Eliza Szendzielorz . Let me start by saing Just a few words about my own background.
I’d like to talk today about the United Nation Organization and its primary judicial organ – The International Court of Justice.
But before I will start my presentation please look at the handout which I prepared to you.
I divided my presentation into four parts. In the first part there are generally information about United Nations. In the second part I will present a principal organs of United Nations. Then I will tell you about the most important issue -International Court of Justice, and the last part of this presentation finally is the short summary .
UNO THE UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION
So now I would like to draw your attention at some generally information about The United Nations Organization (UNO) or simply United Nations (UN). UNO is an international organisation which stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace. The UN was set up in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue. It contains multiple subsidiary organizations to carry out its missions.
The UN's most visible public figure is the Secretary-General, currently Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, who attained the post in 2007. The six official languages of the United Nations, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, while the Secretariat uses two working languages, English and French. Five of the official languages were chosen when the UN was founded; Arabic was added later in 1973. The United Nations Editorial Manual states that the standard for English language documents is British usage and Oxford spelling, the Chinese writing standard is Simplified Chinese. This replaced Traditional Chinese in 1971 when the UN representation of China was changed from the Republic of China to People's Republic of China.
You may probably know how many members actually has the UNO. So ,there are currently 192 member states, including nearly every sovereign state in the world. From its offices around the world, the UN and its specialized agencies decide on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout the year. The organization is divided into administrative bodies, based on five active principal organs (formerly six, the UN Trusteeship Council suspended operations in 1994):
*the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); *the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); *the Economic and Social Council (for assisting in promoting international economic and social cooperation and development); *the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); *the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ). Formerly it is six organs but the UN Trusteeship Council suspended operations in 1994
Four of the five principal organs are located at the main United Nations headquarters located on international territory in New York City. The International Court of Justice is located in The Hague, while other major agencies are based in the UN offices at Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi. Other UN institutions are located throughout the world.
The International Court of Justice
And now I would like to describe you the main part of this presentation - The International Court of Justice. So The ICOJ commonly known World Court, is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. The International Court of Justice was established at the San Francisco Conference by chapter 14 of the UN Charter in 1945. The headquarters of the ICJ is located in the Peace Palace at the Hague, in Netherlands. The ICJ began its working from 1946... The Internal Court of Justice has two major functions. Firstly, it settles legal disputes, which the member countries may bring before it. Secondly, it may give its advisory opinions on legal questions . Since 1980s, may developing countries have been using the services of the ICJ. Since the year 2000 the docket went down from 23 to 12 cases. In the meantime the staff tripled. The ICJ should not be confused with the International Criminal Court, which also potentially has "global" jurisdiction. The ICJ uses two languages, the English language and the French language.
STRUCTURE
And then we come to the structure of ICJ. The ICJ has fifteen permanent judges elected by the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council from a list of persons nominated by the national groups in the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The election process is set out in Articles 4-12 of the ICJ statute. Judges serve for nine year terms and may be re-elected. If a serving judge dies, another judge from that country is generally elected to fill the vacant position. Elections take place every three years, with one-third of judges retire every year in order to ensure continuity within the court. Thus, election takes place every third year. Generally, five members of the Security Council of the United Nations always have a judge from their country. These countries are China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
In some case, the ICJ allows Ad hoc judges. So, if the countries in dispute may desire, they may nominate one judge each for that particular case. This right to nominate is not available if that country already has a judge of its nationality in the ICJ. Thus, sometimes, instead of fifteen, seventeen judges may be deciding a case.
There are many rules, which lay down the qualifications and conduct of the judges of the ICJ.
LAW APPLIED
Very important thing about ICJ is the article 38 of ICJ Statue , in which we have the legal basis. When the ICJ is solving some cases, the Court must apply international law which is summarised in Article 38 of the ICJ Statute. This article provides that in arriving at its decisions the Court shall apply international conventions, international custom, and the "general principles of law recognized by civilized nations". It may also refer to academic writing ("the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations") and previous judicial decisions to help interpret the law, although the Court is not formally bound by its previous decisions under the doctrine of stare decisis. Article 59 makes clear that the common law notion of precedent or stare decisis doesn’t apply to the decisions of the ICJ. The Court's decision binds only the parties to that particular controversy. Under 38, however, the Court may consider its own previous decisions. In reality, the ICJ rarely departs from its own previous decisions and treats them as precedent in a way similar to superior courts in common law systems. Additionally, international lawyers commonly operate as though ICJ judgments had precedential value.
If the parties agree, they may also grant the Court the liberty to decide ex aequo et bono ("in justice and fairness"), granting the ICJ the freedom to make an equitable decision based on what is fair under the circumstances. This provision has not been used in the Court's history. So far the International Court of Justice has dealt with about 130 cases.
Summary/Conclusion
And that bring us to the end of the presentation. Now I would like to remind you the most important information , which will probably be useful for you . The ICJ has fifteen permanent judges, who can be re-elected. The Court should apply international conventions, international customs and the "general principles of law recognized by civilized nations". They can also refer to academic writing and previous judical – but they don’t do it very often. The Internal Court of Justice has two major functions. . Firstly, it settles legal disputes and secondly it may give its advisory opinions on legal questions .
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