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ABSTRACT
The subject of this article is the role of the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court) in interpreting human rights treaties. The article first sets out the limits of the Court’s jurisdiction on human rights questions. Second, it analyses the ICJ’s interpretive techniques, based also on cases concerning general treaty interpretation, in order to examine whether the Court has adopted an interpretive methodology comparable to some of the techniques of the ECtHR. It places this analysis within the broader debate as to whether a specialised approach to interpretation is required in the context of human rights treaties. Third, it considers a further important role that the ICJ can play in adjudicating on the relations between human rights and other issues of international law, including diplomatic protection, State immunities and international humanitarian law.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Harry Aitken, former University Trainee at the ICJ for his valuable research assistance. Both authors write in a personal capacity and their views are not to be attributed to the International Court of Justice, to Three Crowns LLP, or to any of its clients.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Judge Crawford is a judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Amelia Keene was formerly an Associate Legal Officer at the ICJ and is now an Associate at Three Crowns LLP, Paris.
Notes
1 See, e.g. Bas Çali, ‘Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights’, in The Oxford Guide to Treaties, ed. Duncan B. Hollis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 525.
2 Bruno Simma, ‘Human Rights before the International Court of Justice: Community Interest Coming to Life?’, in The Development of International Law by the International Court of Justice, ed. Christian Tams and James Sloan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 301.
3 Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v Democratic Republic of the Congo), Preliminary Objections, I.C.J. Reports 2007, p. 596, para. 32 [Diallo, Preliminary Objections].
4 See, e.g. Obligations Concerning Negotiations Relating to the Cessation of the Nuclear Arms Race and to Nuclear Disarmament (Marshall Islands v. United Kingdom), Preliminary Objections, I.C.J Reports 2016, p. 1, p. 23, para. 58.
5 They are: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [Genocide Convention], 78 UNTS 277 (signed in Paris, 9 February 1948, entered into force 12 January 1951); Convention on the Political Rights of Women, 193 UNTS 135 (signed in New York, 31 March 1953, entered into force 7 July 1954); the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 660 UNTS 195 (signed in New York, 7 March 1996, entered into force 4 January 1969); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, 1349 UNTS 13 (signed in New York, 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981); and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1465 UNTS 85 (signed in New York, 10 December 1984, entered into force 26 June 1987).
6 The Court’s website lists 301 treaties at: http://www.icj-cij.org/jurisdiction/index.php?p1=5&p2=1&p3=4 (accessed April 23, 2019). See also: Dapo Akande, ‘Selection of the International Court of Justice as a Forum for Contentious and Advisory Proceedings (Including Jurisdiction)’, Journal of International Dispute Settlement [JIDS] 7, no. 2 (2016): 320, 324, note 17.
7 Genocide Convention, art IX:
Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
8 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [ECHR], 213 UNTS 222 (signed in Rome on 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953), art 33: ‘Any High Contracting Party may refer to the Court any alleged breach of the provisions of the Convention and the Protocols thereto by another High Contracting Party’.
9 ECHR, art 32:
(1) The jurisdiction of the Court shall extend to all matters concerning the interpretation and application of the Convention and the Protocols thereto which are referred to it as provided in Articles 33, 34, 46 and 47. (2) In the event of dispute as to whether the Court has jurisdiction, the Court shall decide.
10 Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2011, p. 140, para. 184 [Georgia v. Russia, Preliminary Objections].
11 Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Ukraine v. Russian Federation) Provisional Measures Order, 19 April 2017, I.C.J. Reports 2017, p. 125, para. 60.
12 Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Application: 2002) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Rwanda), Jurisdiction and Admissibility, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2006, p. 6 [Armed Activities (DRC v. Rwanda)].
13 Ibid., p. 32, para. 65.
14 Simma, ‘Human Rights before the International Court of Justice’, 310.
15 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, I.C.J Reports 2004, p. 157, para. 47 [Wall Opinion].
16 Questions Relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite (Belgium v. Senegal), Judgment, I.C.J Reports 2012, p. 422 [Belgium v. Senegal].
17 Ibid., p. 449, para. 68.
18 Ibid.
19 International Law Commission (ILC) Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, YBILC 2001 II/2, 26 [ARSIWA], art 48(1):
Any State other than an injured State is entitled to invoke the responsibility of another State in accordance with paragraph 2 if: (a) the obligation breached is owed to a group of States including that State, and is established for the protection of a collective interest of the group; or (b) the obligation breached is owed to the international community as a whole.
20 See, e.g. Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v. Japan; New Zealand intervening), Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2014, p. 226 [Whaling].
21 Letter from the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the French Republic (Consent to the Jurisdiction of the Court to Entertain the Application Pursuant to Article 38, paragraph 5, of the Rules of Court), 8 April 2003, http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3&case=129&code=cof&p3=10 (accessed June 22, 2017).
22 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 115 UNTS 331, (signed in Vienna, 23 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980) [VCLT], article 53 provides that peremptory norms take priority over treaties, but it is not per se a rule of interpretation in the sense of articles 31–33.
23 Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1996, Vol. II, A/CN.4/SER.A/1996/Add.1, p. 209. For a good summary of the drafting history, see: Richard Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation, 2nd ed. (OUP, 2015), Chapter 2; Richard Gardiner, ‘The Vienna Convention Rules on Treaty Interpretation’, in The Oxford Guide to Treaties, ed. Duncan B. Hollis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 478–80; also Andrea Bianchi, ‘The Game of Interpretation in International Law’, in Interpretation in International Law, ed. Andrea Bianchi, Daniel Peat and Matthew Windsor (OUP, 2015), 44, 46–9.
24 See: George Letsas, ‘Strasbourg’s Interpretive Ethic: Lessons for the International Lawyer’, European Journal of International Law [EJIL] 21, no. 3 (2010): 509; Luigi Crema, ‘Disappearance and New Sightings of Restrictive Interpretation’, EJIL 21 (2010): 681; Alexander Orakhilashvili, ‘Restrictive Interpretation of Human Rights Treaties in the Recent Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights’, EJIL 14 (2003): 529; Martin Scheinin, ‘Human Rights Treaties and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: Conflict or Harmony’ (Venice Commission, No. 42, 2005), 42, 54, calling for ‘caution whenever a reference is made to the VCLT in the application of human rights treaties’. Compare Mark E. Villiger, ‘Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in the Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights’, in Internationale Gemeinschaft und Menschenrechte: Festschrift für Georg Ress zum 70. Geburtstag (Carl Heymanns Verlag, 2005), 317; and Julian Arato, ‘Accounting for Difference in Treaty Interpretation Over Time’, in , ed. Andrea Bianchi, Daniel Peat and Matthew Windsor (OUP, 2015), 205, 208: rejecting the idea that subject-matter analysis is a useful way to consider differences in interpretation across treaties in favour of an analysis of the ‘nature of the obligations incorporated by the parties in order to achieve their goals’.
25 John Tobin, ‘Seeking to Persuade: A Constructive Approach to Human Rights Treaty Interpretation’, Harvard Human Rights Journal 23 (2010): 1.
26 Scheinin, ‘Human Rights Treaties and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’, 47.
27 George Letsas, ‘The Truth in Autonomous Concepts: How to Interpret the ECHR’, EJIL 15 (2004): 279, 292–3.
28 Matthew Craven, ‘Legal Differentiation and the Concept of the Human Rights Treaty in International Law’, EJIL 11, no. 3 (2000): 489, 491.
29 Letsas, ‘Strasbourg’s Interpretive Ethic’, 512.
30 Ibid., 512.
31 Ibid., 514; most famously: Golder v. United Kingdom, Ser. A., No. 18, 1 EHRR (1979–1980), 524.
32 Letsas, ‘Strasbourg’s Interpretive Ethic’, 520.
33 Çali, ‘Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation’, 526.
34 Hugh Thirlway, ‘The Law and Procedure of the International Court of Justice 1960–1989, Supplement 2006: Part Three’, The British Yearbook of International Law [BYIL] 77 (2006): 1, 19.
35 Gardiner, ‘The Vienna Convention Rules on Treaty Interpretation’, 504.
36 Ibid.
37 See, e.g. Arnold D. McNair, ‘The Functions and Differing Legal Character of Treaties’, BYIL 11 (1930): 100.
38 See note 23.
39 See Orakhilashvili, ‘Restrictive Interpretation of Human Rights Treaties’, 534.
40 Golder, para. 29.
41 Compare: Mark E. Villiger, ‘Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in the Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights’, in Internationale Gemeinschaft und Menschenrechte: Festschrift für Georg Ress zum 70. Geburtstag (Carl Heymanns Verlag, 2005), 317, 329–30, conducting an analysis of the case law and concluding that while the Court’s references to the Vienna Convention are relatively rare, they are persistent and that the Court ‘has perfectly grasped the interpretation of Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention’.
42 Bankovic and ors v. Belgium and 16 other NATO States, ECHR App no 52207/99, Judgment, 12 December 2001, para 57; Witold Litwa v. Poland ECHR App no 26629/95, Judgment, 4 April 2000. See Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation, 42–4.
43 Vaughan Lowe, International Law (OUP, 2007), 74.
44 Letsas, ‘Strasbourg’s Interpretive Ethic’, 511.
45 Dispute Regarding Navigational and Related Rights (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua), Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2009, p. 48: ‘[T]he Court is not convinced … that Costa Rica’s right of free navigation should be interpreted narrowly because it represents a limitation of the sovereignty over the river conferred by the Treaty on Nicaragua’.
46 Such categorisations are always difficult. We exclude cases that did not get to a question of interpretation (i.e. that settled), cases on immunities (even where this concerns human rights), consular assistance, or international humanitarian law, unless a human rights treaty interpretation issue was also raised. While many of the advisory opinions concern human rights matters, none of them are strictly about interpreting a human rights treaty other than the Reservations opinion. Of the cases that concern the interpretation of human rights treaties, five concern the Genocide Convention (including Armed Activities (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Rwanda), and the Reservations opinion); two concern the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Ukraine v. Russia and Georgia v. Russian Federation); and three are miscellaneous (Questions relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite (Belgium v. Senegal), Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v. Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Armed Activities (DRC v. Uganda)).
47 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Hezegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro) Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2007, p. 43; Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia) Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2015, p 3. February 2015 [Croatia Genocide].
48 Armed Activities (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda); Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Guinea v. Democratic Republic of the Congo) Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2010, p. 639 [Diallo, Merits].
49 Armed Activities (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), para. 219.
50 Tobin, ‘Seeking to Persuade’, 1.
51 Diallo, Merits.
52 Diallo, Preliminary Objections.
53 Diallo, Merits, para. 81.
54 Ibid., para. 97.
55 Ibid., para. 66.
56 Ibid., para. 67–8.
57 Ibid., para. 65–6.
58 Bosnia Genocide, Merits, paras. 228–30, 327–8, especially relying on the Secretary-General’s Report Fall of Srebrenica.
59 Belgium v. Senegal, para. 101.
60 Blagojević, IT-02-60-T, ICTY Trial Chamber Judgment, 17 January 2005; Krstić, IT-98-33-T, Trial Chamber Judgment, 2 August 2001. See Bosnia Genocide, Merits, paras. 278–95.
61 Bosnia Genocide, Merits, para. 295.
62 Gotovina, IT-06-90-A, ICTY Appeals Judgment, 16 November 2012.
63 Croatia Genocide, paras. 187, 461.
64 Ibid., paras. 464–72.
65 Theodor Meron, The Humanization of International Law (Martinus Nijhoff, 2006), 193.
66 LaGrand (Germany v. United States of America) Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2001, p. 466, para. 99.
67 Bianchi, ‘The Game of Interpretation in International Law’,44.
68 Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, 2 February 2017, para. 64.
69 Ibid., para. 64.
70 Tyrer v. The United Kingdom Ser. A, No. 26, (1978) 2 EHRR 1, 15, para. 31; Matthews v. United Kingdom (App no 24883/94) (1999) 30 EHRR 361, para. 39: ‘That the Convention is a living instrument which must be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions is firmly rooted in the Court’s case law’.
71 Marckx v. Belgium (App no 6833/74), [1979] ECHR 2, (1980) 2 EHRR 330.
72 Schalk and Kopf v. Austria (App no 30141/04), ECHR 2010-I.
73 Oliari v. Italy (App no 18766/11 and 36030/11), ECHR 21 July 2015.
74 Aegean Sea Continental Shelf, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1978, p. 32, para. 77.
75 Dispute regarding Navigational and Related Rights (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua), Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2009, p. 242–4, para. 64.
76 Ibid., para. 66.
77 Ibid., para. 71.
78 Ibid., para. 79.
79 Ibid., paras. 64, 68.
80 Ibid., para. 71; see also Epaminontas E. Triantafilou, ‘Contemporaneity and Evolutive Interpretation under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’, ICSID Review - Foreign Investment Law Journal 32, no. 1 (2017): 138, 157, identifying the text as a limitation in evolutive interpretation: ‘the meaning of a treaty term may evolve but [that] it cannot be entirely dislodged from the basic legal and conceptual framework from which the term emanated when the treaty was concluded’. But cf Julian Arato, ‘Subsequent Practice and Evolutive Interpretation: Techniques of Treaty Interpretation Over Time and their Diverse Consequences’, Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 9, no. 3 (2010): 443, 473: ‘the outer limit of evolutive interpretation is the treaty’s object and purpose’.
81 Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay), Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2010, p. 83, para. 204.
82 Whaling, para. 45; James Crawford, ‘Foreword’, in The Evolutionary Interpretation of Treaties, ed. Eirik Bjorge (OUP, 2014).
83 Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970), Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1971, p. 16, paras. 21–22, 53 [South West Africa].
84 Bruno Simma, ‘Mainstreaming Human Rights: The Contribution of the International Court of Justice’, JIDS 3 (2012): 1, 20.
85 Cf Eirik Bjorge, The Evolutionary Interpretation of Treaties (OUP, 2014), 10.
86 See e.g. Marckx v. Belgium, but cf Malgosia Fitzmaurice, ‘Dynamic (Evolutive) Interpretation of Treaties, Part I’, The Hague Yearbook of International Law (2008): 101, 153, arguing that an evolutive interpretation must be based on some evidence of the original intention of the parties that the treaty be capable of evolution, whereas only subsequent practice allows for a development of the original term without evidence of that original intent. See also: Arato, ‘Subsequent Practice and Evolutive Interpretation’ and the ECtHR cases cited therein. Arato acknowledges the conceptual difficulty in drawing a line between subsequent practice and evolutive interpretation.
87 A. P. Sereni, Diritto internazionale I (1956): 182; Franz Matscher, ‘Methods of Interpretation of the Convention’, in The European System for the Protection of Human Rights, ed. R. St J. MacDonald, F. Matscher and H. Petzold (Martinus Nijhoff, 1993), 70.
88 Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1996, Vol. II, A/CN.4/SER.A/1996/Add.1, p. 219, para. 6.
89 Iron Rhine Arbitration (Belgium v. The Netherlands) (2005) 27 RIAA 35, 73 para. 80.
90 Catherine Brölmann, ‘Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation: International Organizations’, in The Oxford Guide to Treaties, ed. Duncan B. Hollis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 507, 513.
91 See discussion in Gardiner, ‘The Vienna Convention Rules on Treaty Interpretation’, 496–7; Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya/Chad) Judgment, Merits, I.C.J. Reports 1994, p. 25–6, paras. 51–52; South West Africa, para. 66; Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1996, p. 66, 80, para. 26: ‘any other conclusion would render virtually meaningless the notion of a specialized agency’.
92 Libya/Chad, ibid., p. 23, para. 47.
93 Soering v. United Kingdom (App no 14038/88) [1989] ECHR 13, [1989] 11 EHRR 439, para. 87.
94 Çali, ‘Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation’, 537–41.
95 Ibid., 545.
96 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1996, p. 615–6, para. 31.
97 Georgia v. Russia, Preliminary Objections, para. 109.
98 Armed Activities (DRC v. Uganda), para. 179.
99 Sarah Miller, ‘Revisiting Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: A Territorial Justification for Extraterritorial Jurisdiction under the European Convention’, EJIL 20, no. 4 (2009): 1223.
100 Issa and Others v. Turkey, ECHR, Application No. 31821/96, Judgment, 6 November 2004, paras. 71, 76, 81, 82; see CR 2010/9, p. 65, para. 10 (Sands), for the argument on this case made at the Merits Phase of Georgia v. Russia.
101 Issa v. Turkey, ibid., para. 69–71, 74.
102 Ibid., para. 76.
103 Alistair Mowbray, The Development of Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights by the European Court of Human Rights (2004).
104 Bosnia Genocide (Merits), paras. 428–32.
105 Redfearn v. United Kingdom, ECHR, Application no. 47335/06, Judgment, 6 November 2012 para. 57.
106 Ibid., Jointly Partly Dissenting Opinion of Judges Bratza, Hirvelä and Nicolaou, para. 4.
107 Bruno Simma, ‘The ICJ and Common Goods: The Case of Human Rights’, in International Law for Common Goods: Normative Perspectives on Human Rights, Culture and Nature, ed. Federico Lenzerini and Ana Filipa Vrdoljak (Hart, 2014), 36.
108 Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions, Judgment No. 2, 1924, P.C.I.J., Series A, No. 2, p. 12.
109 Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v Democratic Republic of the Congo), Preliminary Objections, I.C.J. Reports 2007, p. 662, para. 63.
110 For a discussion of the case see: Eirik Bjorge, ‘International Decisions: Ahmadou Sadio Diallo’, AJIL 105 (2011): 534.
111 Diallo, Preliminary Objections, para. 39.
112 Ibid., para. 57.
113 Case Concerning the Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium), Judgment, I.C.J Reports 2002, p. 22, para. 54.
114 Ibid., para. 58.
115 Ibid.
116 Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy: Greece intervening), Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2012, p. 140, para. 93.
117 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, I.C.J. Reports 2004, p. 178, para. 106.
118 Croatia Genocide, para. 151.
119 Ibid., paras. 85, 151–53.
120 Ibid., paras. 151–53.
121 Ibid., para. 474.
122 Ibid., para. 153.
123 Croatia Genocide, para. 105.
124 Ibid., para. 104.
125 Bosnia Genocide, para. 460.
126 Ibid., para. 460.
127 Ibid., para. 462.
128 Ibid., para. 463.
129 Simma, in Tams and Sloan (eds), supra note 14, 325.
130 Ibid., 310.