INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

REPORTS OF JUDGMENTS,
ADVISORY OPINIONS AND ORDERS

CASE CONCERNING
THE LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY
BETWEEN CAMEROON AND NIGERIA

(CAMEROON r. NIGERIA)

APPLICATION BY EQUATORIAL GUINEA
FOR PERMISSION TO INTERVENE

ORDER OF 21 OCTOBER 1999

1999

COUR INTERNATIONALE DE JUSTICE

RECUEIL DES ARRETS,
AVIS CONSULTATIFS ET ORDONNANCES

AFFAIRE DE LA FRONTIERE TERRESTRE
ET MARITIME ENTRE LE CAMEROUN
ET LE NIGERIA

(CAMEROUN c. NIGERIA)

REQUETE DE LA GUINEE EQUATORIALE
A FIN D’INTERVENTION

ORDONNANCE DU 21 OCTOBRE 1999
Official citation:

Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria,
Application to Intervene, Order of 21 October 1999,
LC J. Reports 1999, p. 1029

Mode officiel de citation:

Frontière terrestre et maritime entre le Cameroun et le Nigéria,
requête à fin d'intervention, ordonnance du 21 octobre 1999,
C.J. Recueil 1999, p. 1029

Sales number
ISSN 0074-4441 N° de vente: 765

ISBN 92-1-070837-7

21 OCTOBER 1999

ORDER

LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY
BETWEEN CAMEROON AND NIGERIA

(CAMEROON y. NIGERIA)

APPLICATION BY EQUATORIAL GUINEA
FOR PERMISSION TO INTERVENE

FRONTIERE TERRESTRE ET MARITIME
ENTRE LE CAMEROUN ET LE NIGERIA

(CAMEROUN c. NIGERIA)

REQUETE DE LA GUINEE EQUATORIALE
A FIN D’INTERVENTION

21 OCTOBRE 1999

ORDONNANCE
1999
21 October
General List
No. 94

1029

INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

YEAR 1999

21 October 1999

CASE CONCERNING
THE LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY
BETWEEN CAMEROON AND NIGERIA

(CAMEROON v. NIGERIA)

APPLICATION BY EQUATORIAL GUINEA
FOR PERMISSION TO INTERVENE

ORDER

Present: President SCHWEBEL; Vice-President WWEERAMANTRY; Judges
Opa, BEDJAOUI, GUILLAUME, RANJEVA, HERCZEGH, SHI,
FLEISCHHAUER, KOROMA, VERESHCHETIN, HIGGINS, PARRA-
ARANGUREN, KOOIJMANS, REZEK; Judges ad hoc MBAYE,
AJBOLA; Registrar VALENCIA-OSPINA.

The International Court of Justice,

Composed as above,
After deliberation,

Having regard to Articles 48 and 62 of the Statute of the Court and to
Articles 81, 83, 84 and 85 of the Rules of Court,

Having regard to the Application filed by the Republic of Cameroon in
the Registry of the Court on 29 March 1994 instituting proceedings
against the Federal Republic of Nigeria in respect of a dispute described
as “relat[ing} essentially to the question of sovereignty over the Bakassi
Peninsula”, in which the Court was also requested “to determine the

4
1030 LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY (ORDER 21 X 99)

course of the maritime boundary between the two States beyond the line
fixed in 1975”,

Having regard to the Additional Application submitted by Cameroon
on 6 June 1994,

Having regard to the Order of 16 June 1994, whereby the Court indi-
cated that it had no objection to the Additional Application being treated
as an amendment to the initial Application and fixed the time-limits for
the filing of the Memorial of Cameroon and the Counter-Memorial of
Nigeria, respectively,

Having regard to the Memorial filed by Cameroon and the preliminary
objections submitted by Nigeria within the time-limits thus fixed,

Having regard to the Judgment of 11 June 1998, whereby the Court
ruled on the preliminary objections raised by Nigeria,

Having regard to the Order of 30 June 1998, whereby the Court fixed
a new time-limit for the filing of the Counter-Memorial of Nigeria, and
to the Order of 3 March 1999, whereby it extended that time-limit,

Having regard to the Counter-Memorial filed by Nigeria within the
time-limit thus extended,

Having regard to the Order of 30 June 1999, whereby the Court
decided inter alia that Cameroon should submit a Reply and Nigeria
should submit a Rejoinder, and fixed 4 April 2000 and 4 January 2001
respectively as the time-limits for the filing of those pleadings,

Makes the following Order:

1. Whereas, by a letter dated 27 June 1999, received in the Registry on
30 June 1999, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea
submitted to the Court an “Application . . . to intervene in the case con-
cerning the Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria
(Cameroon v. Nigeria) pursuant to Article 62 of the Statute of the Court
and Article 81 of the Rules of the Court”; and whereas that same letter
appointed H.E. Mr. Ricardo Mangue Obama N’Fube, Minister of State,
Secretary-General of the Presidency of the Government, as Agent;

2. Whereas, in the introduction to its Application, Equatorial Guinea
refers to the eighth preliminary objection raised by Nigeria in the case
concerning the Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and
Nigeria (Cameroon v. Nigeria) and quotes as follows paragraph 116 of
the Judgment handed down by the Court on 11 June 1998 on the objec-
tions of Nigeria (1 C.J. Reports 1998, p. 324):

“The Court notes that the geographical location of the territories
of the other States bordering the Gulf of Guinea, and in particular
Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome and Principe, demonstrates that it
is evident that the prolongation of the maritime boundary between
the Parties . . . will eventually run into maritime zones where the
rights and interests of Cameroon and Nigeria will overlap those of
1031 LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY (ORDER 21 X 99)

third States. It thus appears that rights and interests of third States
will become involved if the Court accedes to Cameroon’s request . . .
The Court cannot therefore, in the present case, give a decision on
the eighth preliminary objection as a preliminary matter. In order to
determine where a prolonged maritime boundary . . . would run,
where and to what extent it would meet possible claims of other
States, and how its judgment would affect the rights and interests of
these States, the Court would of necessity have to deal with the
merits of Cameroon’s request. At the same time, the Court cannot
rule out the possibility that the impact of the judgment required by
Cameroon on the rights and interests of third States could be
such that the Court would be prevented from rendering it in the
absence of these States, and that consequently Nigeria’s eighth
preliminary objection would have to be upheld at least in part.
Whether such third States would choose to exercise their rights to
intervene in these proceedings pursuant to the Statute remains to be
seen” (emphasis added):

and whereas Equatorial Guinea adds:

“It is in this context that Equatorial Guinea comes before the
Court. Equatorial Guinea wishes to be very clear that it has no
intention of intervening in those aspects of the proceedings that
relate to the land boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria, includ-
ing determination of sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula. It is
only the maritime boundary aspects of the case before the Court
with which Equatorial Guinea is concerned; and, as is explained
more fully below, it is the purpose of Equatorial Guinea’s interven-
tion to inform the Court of Equatorial Guinea’s legal rights and
interests so that these may remain unaffected as the Court proceeds
to address the question of the maritime boundary between Cam-
eroon and Nigeria, the parties to the case before it. Equatorial
Guinea does not seek to become a party to the case”;

3. Whereas, in its Application, Equatorial Guinea, referring to
Article 81, paragraph 2 (a), of the Rules of Court sets out inter alia in
these terms “the interest of a legal nature which [it] considers may be
affected by the decision in that case”:

“in accordance with its national law, Equatorial Guinea claims the
sovereign rights and jurisdiction which pertain to it under inter-
national law up to the median line between Equatorial Guinea and
Nigeria on the one hand, and between Equatorial Guinea and Cam-
eroon on the other hand. It is these legal rights and interests which
Equatorial Guinea seeks to protect ... Equatorial Guinea . . . wishes
to emphasize that it does not seek the Court’s determination of its
boundaries with Cameroon or Nigeria. Equatorial Guinea does wish
to protect its legal rights and interests, however, and that requires
1032 LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY (ORDER 21 X 99)

that any Cameroon-Nigeria maritime boundary that may be deter-
mined by the Court should not cross over the median line with
Equatorial Guinea. If the Court were to determine a Cameroon-
Nigeria maritime boundary that extended into Equatorial Guinea
waters, as defined by the median line, Equatorial Guinea’s rights and
interests would be prejudiced . . . It is the purpose of Equatorial
Guinea to present and to demonstrate its legal rights and interests to
the Court and, as appropriate, to state its views as to how the mari-
time boundary claims of Cameroon or Nigeria may or may not
affect the legal rights and interests of Equatorial Guinea”;

4. Whereas, in its Application, Equatorial Guinea, referring to
Article 81, paragraph 2 (6), of the Rules of Court, sets out “the precise
object of the intervention” as follows:

“First, generally, to protect the legal rights of the Republic of
Equatorial Guinea in the Gulf of Guinea by all legal means avail-
able, and in this regard, therefore, to make use of the procedure
established by Article 62 of the Statute of the Court.

Second, to inform the Court of the nature of the legal rights and
interests of Equatorial Guinea that could be affected by the Court’s
decision in the light of the maritime boundary claims advanced by
the Parties to the case before the Court”;

5. Whereas, in its Application, Equatorial Guinea, referring to Ar-
ticle 81, paragraph 2 (c), of the Rules of Court, expresses the following
opinion concerning the “basis of jurisdiction which is claimed to exist as
between [it] and the parties to the case”:

“The Republic of Equatorial Guinea does not seek to be a party
to the case before the Court. There is no basis for jurisdiction under
the Statute and Rules of the Court which arises out of the pre-exist-
ing understandings between Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Cam-
eroon. Equatorial Guinea has not made a declaration under Ar-
ticle 36 (2) of the Statute of the Court nor is there an agreement in
force among the three States which confers jurisdiction on the Court
in this regard. It would be open, of course, to the three countries
affirmatively to request the Court not only to determine the Cam-
eroon-Nigeria maritime boundary but also to determine Equatorial
Guinea’s maritime boundaries with these two States. However, Equa-
torial Guinea has made no such request and wishes to continue to
seek to determine its maritime boundaries with its neighbours
through negotiations.

Accordingly, Equatorial Guinea’s request to intervene is based
solely upon Article 62 of the Statute of the Court”:
1033 LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY (ORDER 21 X 99)

6. Whereas, in ending its Application, Equatorial Guinea formulates
the following conclusion:

“On the basis of the foregoing observations, Equatorial Guinea
respectfully requests permission to intervene in the present proceed-
ings between Cameroon and Nigeria for the object and purpose
specified herein, and to participate in those proceedings in accord-
ance with Article 85 of the Rules of the Court”;

7. Whereas, in accordance with Article 83, paragraph 1, of the Rules
of Court, the Deputy-Registrar, by letters dated 30 June 1999, transmit-
ted certified copies of the Application for permission to intervene to the
Government of Cameroon and the Government of Nigeria, which were
informed that the Court had fixed 16 August 1999 as the time-limit for
the submission of their written observations on that Application; and
whereas, in accordance with paragraph 2 of that same provision, the
Deputy-Registrar, on 30 June 1999, also transmitted a copy of the Appli-
cation to the Secretary-General of the United Nations;

8. Whereas Cameroon and Nigeria each submitted written observa-
tions within the time-limit thus fixed; and whereas the Registry transmit-
ted to each Party a copy of the other’s observations, as well as copies of
the observations of both Parties to Equatorial Guinea;

9. Whereas, in its written observations, Cameroon informs the Court
that it “has no objection in principle to [the intervention of Equatorial
Guinea], limited to the maritime boundary, which could allow the Court
to be better informed on the general background to the case and to deter-
mine more completely the dispute submitted to it”; whereas it adds,
referring to the Judgment handed down by the Court on 11 June 1998
(Preliminary Objections), that “the Court envisaged the possibility that
third States might intervene, amongst which was clearly the Republic of
Equatorial Guinea”; and whereas it considers that “the intervention of
Equatorial Guinea should allow the Court to decide on a delimitation of
the boundary which will be stable and final in relation to the States
involved”; and whereas, in those same written observations, Cameroon
moreover

“entirely reserves its position in relation to the validity and possible
consequences of the unilateral delimitation undertaken by Equa-
torial Guinea, whose claims, based solely on the principle of equi-
distance, do not take into account the special geographical features
of the area in dispute”;

10. Whereas, in its written observations, Nigeria notes that “Equa-
torial Guinea does not seek to intervene as a party in the proceedings”;
and whereas it adds the following:

“Whether or not Equatorial Guinea’s Application is accepted, it
will in Nigerta’s view make no difference to the legal position of
1034 LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY (ORDER 21 X 99)

Nigeria to the present proceedings, or to the jurisdiction of the
Court. On that basis, Nigeria leaves it to the Court to judge whether
and to what extent it is appropriate or useful to grant Equatorial
Guinea’s Application” ;

11. Whereas communications were subsequently addressed to the Reg-
istry by the Parties and by Equatorial Guinea, and whereas the Registry
transmitted copies of each of those communications to the other two
States; whereas Equatorial Guinea, by a letter dated 3 September 1999,
noted that neither Cameroon nor Nigeria “ha[d] objected in principle to
the intervention of Equatorial Guinea”; whereas Nigeria, by a letter
dated 13 September 1999, referred to certain passages in the written
observations of Cameroon and maintained that Cameroon “misrepre-
sent[ed] the position” of Equatorial Guinea, in that “[a]s Nigeria under-
stands the position, Equatorial Guinea did not seek to intervene as a
party, but as a third party”; whereas Cameroon, by a letter dated
11 October 1999, indicated that “it [did] not dispute the right of Equa-
torial Guinea to intervene as a non-party intervener” and expressed the
view that “it [was] not for Nigeria to take the place of Equatorial Guinea
in deciding on the latter’s entitlement to intervene”, it being for the Court
itself to determine the legal effects of such an intervention; and whereas
Equatorial Guinea, in a further communication, dated 11 October 1999,
observed that “there [could] be no question of the Court’s eventual Judg-
ment determining the maritime boundaries of Equatorial Guinea, whether
with Cameroon or Nigeria” and that it “[sought] the status of a non-
party intervener” ;

12. Whereas neither of the Parties objects to the Application by Equa-
torial Guinea for permission to intervene being granted;

13. Whereas, in the opinion of the Court, Equatorial Guinea has suf-
ficiently established that it has an interest of a legal nature which could
be affected by any judgment which the Court might hand down for the
purpose of determining the maritime boundary between Cameroon and
Nigeria;

14. Whereas, moreover, as a Chamber of the Court has already had
occasion to observe,

“[slo far as the object of [a State’s] intervention is ‘to inform the
Court of the nature of the legal rights [of that State] which are in
issue in the dispute’, it cannot be said that this object is not a proper
one: it seems indeed to accord with the function of intervention”
(Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador! Hondu-
ras), Application by Nicaragua for Permission to Intervene, Judg-
ment of 13 September 1990, L. C.J. Reports 1990, p. 130, para. 90);

15. Whereas in addition, as the same Chamber pointed out,

“{lt . . . follows . . . from the juridical nature and from the pur-
poses of intervention that the existence of a valid link of jurisdiction
1035 LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY (ORDER 21 X 99)

between the would-be intervener and the parties is not a requirement
for the success of the application. On the contrary, the procedure of
intervention is to ensure that a State with possibly affected interests
may be permitted to intervene even though there is no jurisdictional
link and it therefore cannot become a party” (Z C.J. Reports 1990,
p. 135, para. 100);

16. Whereas, in view of the position of the Parties and the conclusions
which the Court itself has reached, the Court considers that there is
nothing to prevent the Application by Equatorial Guinea for permission
to intervene from being granted;

17. Whereas copies of the pleadings and documents annexed, as filed
in the case at present, have already been communicated to Equatorial
Guinea pursuant to Article 53, paragraph 1, of the Rules of Court; and
whereas a copy of the Reply of Cameroon and of the Rejoinder of
Nigeria, which the Court has directed them to submit pursuant to its
Order of 30 June 1999, will also be so communicated; whereas, in accord-
ance with the provisions of Article 85 of the Rules of Court, it is neces-
sary to fix time-limits for the filing, respectively, of a “written statement”
by Equatorial Guinea and of “written observations” by Cameroon and
by Nigeria on that statement; and whereas those time-limits must “so far
as possible, coincide with those already fixed for the pleadings in the
case”, in the present instance by the above-mentioned Order of 30 June
1999;

18. For these reasons,

THE Court,
Unanimously,

1. Decides that the Republic of Equatorial Guinea is permitted to
intervene in the case, pursuant to Article 62 of the Statute, to the extent,
in the manner and for the purposes set out in its Application for permis-
sion to intervene;

2. Fixes the following time-limits for the filing of the written statement
and the written observations referred to in Article 85, paragraph |, of the
Rules of Court:

4 April 2001 for the written statement of the Republic of Equatorial
Guinea;

4 July 2001 for the written observations of the Republic of Cameroon
and of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; and

3. Reserves the subsequent procedure for further decision.

Done in English and in French, the English text being authoritative, at
the Peace Palace, The Hague, this twenty-first day of October, one thou-
sand nine hundred and ninety-nine, in four copies, one of which will be
placed in the archives of the Court and the others transmitted to the

10
1036 LAND AND MARITIME BOUNDARY (ORDER 21 X 99)

Government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, the Government of
the Republic of Cameroon and the Government of the Federal Republic

of Nigeria, respectively.

(Signed) Stephen M. SCHWEBEL,
President.

(Signed) Eduardo VALENCIA-OsPINA,
Registrar.

11


330

JOINT DECLARATION OF VICE-PRESIDENT RANJEVA,
JUDGES GUILLAUME, HIGGINS, KOOIJMANS,
AL-KHASAWNEH, BUERGENTHAL AND ELARABY

[English Original Text]

Various objections to the jurisdiction of the Court — Freedom of choice of
the Court — Guiding criteria: consistency; certitude; implications for the other
pending cases — Judgment of the Court inappropriately based on its lack of
jurisdiction ratione personae — Judgment incompatible with previous decisions
of the Court.

1. We have voted in favour of the dispositif of the Judgment because,
at the end of the day, we each agree that this case cannot, as a matter of
law, proceed to the merits. Nevertheless, we profoundly disagree with the
reasoning upon which the Judgment rests, in particular the ground upon
which the Court has found it has no jurisdiction.

2. It is not unusual that, in a case, the Court has the possibility of
determining its jurisdiction on more than one ground (Right of Passage
over Indian Territory, Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J Reports
1957, pp. 129-134; Aerial Incident of 27 July 1955 (Israel v. Bulgaria),
Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1959, pp. 132-134; Land and Maritime Bound-
ary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v. Nigeria), Preliminary
Objections, Judgment, I. C.J Reports 1998, pp. 284-289; Aerial Incident
of 10 August 1999 (Pakistan v. India), Jurisdiction, Judgment, I. CJ.
Reports 2000, pp. 19-24). Submissions may have been made to the Court
that it lacks jurisdiction by reference to more than one of the common
bases of jurisdiction (that is to say, ratione personae, ratione materiae,
ratione temporis). If the Court finds that, on two or more grounds, its
jurisdiction is not well founded, it may choose the most appropriate
ground on which to base its decision of lack of competence. The Court
does not necessarily first have to dispose of the conditions laid down in
Article 35 of the Statute, dealing only later with the conditions laid down
in Articles 36 and 37.

3. The choice of the Court has to be exercised in a manner that reflects
its judicial function. That being so, there are three criteria that must
guide the Court in selecting between possible options. First, in exercising
its choice, it must ensure consistency with its own past case law in order
to provide predictability. Consistency is the essence of judicial reasoning.
This is especially true in different phases of the same case or with regard
to closely related cases. Second, the principle of certitude will lead the
Court to choose the ground which is most secure in law and to avoid a
ground which is less safe and, indeed, perhaps doubtful. Third, as the
principal judicial organ of the United Nations, the Court will, in making

55
LEGALITY OF USE OF FORCE (JOINT DECL.) 331

its selection among possible grounds, be mindful of the possible implica-
tions and consequences for the other pending cases.

4. In the earlier phase of the present case — as in other cases relating
to events after the break-up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugo-
slavia — the Court had chosen to base itself on jurisdictional considera-
tions ratione temporis and ratione materiae.

5. In this respect it should first be recalled that when the Court gave an
Order of 2 June 1999, in response to a request by the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia for the indication of provisional measures, in which it found
that it lacked prima facie jurisdiction to rule on Yugoslavia’s Applica-
tion, it did so on quite different grounds from the one on which the Court
has based itself in the present decision.

6. In the Orders concerning Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, Portugal
and the United Kingdom, the Court observed that Yugoslavia’s declara-
tion accepting the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court under Article 36,
paragraph 2, of the Statute, had been filed with the United Nations
Secretary-General on 26 April 1999 (three days before the institution of
proceedings). In that declaration, Yugoslavia recognized, on condition
of reciprocity, “the jurisdiction of the said Court in all disputes arising
or which may arise after the signature of the present Declaration,
with regard to the situations or facts subsequent to this signature”.

The Court found that the Application was directed, in essence, against
the bombing of Yugoslav territory by several members of NATO. It
observed that the bombings began on 24 March 1999. Accordingly, it
considered that the disputes before it had arisen some time prior to
25 April 1999. The Court further recalled its established jurisprudence
whereby any limitation ratione temporis attached by one of the parties to
its declaration of acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction “holds good as
between the Parties” and concluded from this that the declaration of
Yugoslavia, taken in conjunction with those made by the Parties which
had also accepted the Court’s jurisdiction under Article 36, paragraph 2,
of the Statute, did not constitute a basis on which its jurisdiction could
prima facie be founded (see, for example, case concerning Legality of Use
of Force ( Yugoslavia v. Belgium), Order of 2 June 1999, C.J. Reports
1999 (I), p. 135, para. 30). The Court, thus lacking prima facie jurisdic-
tion ratione temporis, concluded that it did not need to examine whether
Yugoslavia was or was not a Member of the United Nations and a party
to the Statute in 1999, or whether on such basis it had jurisdiction ratione
personae.

7. In all the Orders, the Court next noted that Yugoslavia and certain
of the respondent States were parties to the United Nations Genocide
Convention without reservation. It recalled the definition of genocide as
stated in the Convention and observed that, according to that definition,

56
LEGALITY OF USE OF FORCE (JOINT DECL.) 332

“[the] essential characteristic [of genocide] is the intended destruction of
‘a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’” (.C.J. Reports 1999 (1),
p. 138, para. 40). In the Court’s view, it did not appear “at the present
stage of the proceedings that the bombings which form the subject of the
Yugoslav Application ‘indeed entail the element of intent, towards a
group as such, required by the provision quoted above’” (ibid., p. 138,
para. 40).

8. Based on different reasoning, the Court has now confirmed that
it lacks jurisdiction to entertain the claims presented by Serbia and
Montenegro. It began by finding that Serbia and Montenegro, on
29 April 1999, was not a Member of the United Nations and not a party
to the Statute. It concluded therefrom that the Court was not open to
Serbia and Montenegro under Article 35, paragraph 1, of the Statute.

Moreover, the Court considered that Article 35, paragraph 2, of the
Statute enabled States not parties to the Statute to appear before the
Court only by virtue of treaties concluded prior to the entry into force of
the Statute. It observed that the Genocide Convention entered into force
at a later date, on 12 January 1951. It thus concluded that Article 35,
paragraph 2, did not grant Serbia and Montenegro access to the Court
under Article IX of the Convention. Accordingly, the Court was not
called upon to decide “whether Serbia and Montenegro was or was not a
party to the Genocide Convention” when the Applications were filed. In
any event, the Court was, once again, not open to Serbia and Monte-
negro.

In sum, and contrary to its position in 1999, the Court has thus pre-
ferred to rule on its jurisdiction ratione personae, without even examining
the questions of jurisdiction ratione temporis and ratione materiae on
which it had previously pronounced prima facie.

9. This change of position is all the more surprising as the reasoning
now adopted by the Court is at odds with judgments or orders previously
rendered by the Court.

10. We would first observe that the question whether Yugoslavia was
a Member of the United Nations and as such a party to the Statute
between 1992 and 2000, remained a subject of debate during that period.
The Court declined to settle the issue, both in 1993 (Application of the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) ), Pro-
visional Measures, I.C.J. Reports 1993, p. 14, para. 18) and in 1999 when
issuing its Order on provisional measures (Legality of Use of Force
( Yugoslavia v. Belgium), Order of 2 June 1999, I.C.J. Reports 1999 (I),
p. 136, para. 33). It then confined itself to stating that the solution
adopted in this respect by Security Council resolution 757 (1992) and
General Assembly resolution 47/1 was “not free from legal difficulties”
(Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia (Serbia and

57
LEGALITY OF USE OF FORCE (JOINT DECL.) 333

Montenegro)), Provisional Measures, I.C.J. Reports 1993, p. 14,
para. 18).

Subsequent to the admission of Serbia and Montenegro to the United
Nations on 1 November 2000, the Court had to consider the question
whether that admission clarified the previous position. The Court then
found, in its Judgment of 3 February 2003, that

“resolution 47/1 did not inter alia affect the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia’s right to appear before the Court or to be a party to a
dispute before the Court under the conditions laid down by the Stat-
ute” (Application for Revision of the Judgment of 11 July 1996 in the
Case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herze-
govina v. Yugoslavia), Preliminary Objections ( Yugoslavia v. Bosnia
and Herzegovina), I.C.J. Reports 2003, p. 31, para. 70).

The Court added that

“General Assembly resolution 55/12 of 1 November 2000 cannot
have changed retroactively the sui generis position which the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia found itself in vis-a-vis the United Nations
over the period 1992 to 2000, or its position in relation to the Statute
of the Court” (ibid., para. 71).

The Court thus previously found in 2003 that the Federal Republic of Yugo-
slavia could appear before the Court between 1992 and 2000 and that this
position was not changed by its admission to the United Nations in 2002.

11. Further, the interpretation given in the present Judgment of
Article 35, paragraph 2, of the Statute also appears to us to be at odds
with the position previously adopted by the Court in its Order of 8 April
1993, where it considered that

“proceedings may validly be instituted by a State against a State
which is a party to such a special provision in a treaty in force, but
is not party to the Statute, and independently of the conditions laid
down by the Security Council in its resolution 9 of 1946” / Applica-
tion of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia (Serbia
and Montenegro) ), Provisional Measures, Order of 8 April 1993,
1. C.J. Reports 1993, p. 14, para. 19).

It is moreover astonishing that the Court found it necessary to rule on
the scope of Article 35, paragraph 2, whereas the Applicant did not
invoke this text.

12. Turning to the second criterion that the Court should apply in
selecting between alternative grounds for its decision — that of certi-
tude — we also find this not to be reflected in the ground chosen by the
Court today. Nothing has occurred, in the series of cases concerning
Kosovo, since the Court’s last judgment in 2003, to suggest that the

58
LEGALITY OF USE OF FORCE (JOINT DECL.) 334

grounds previously chosen have now lost legal credibility. Further, the
grounds today selected by the Court are less certain than others open to
it. The Court has determined that the admission of the Applicant to the
United Nations in November 2000 “did not have, and could not have
had, the effect of dating back to the time when the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia broke up and disappeared” (para. 78). The Court
has also stated that “the significance of this new development in 2000 is
that it has clarified the thus far amorphous legal situation concerning the
status of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia vis-à-vis the United Nations”
(para. 79). Without specifying whether this “clarification” refers to the
period 1992-2000, the Court asserts that it has now become “clear that
the sui generis position of the Applicant could not have amounted to its
membership in the Organization”. We find this proposition far from self-
evident and we cannot trace the steps of the reasoning. Such grounds
seem to us to be less legally compelling and therefore less certain, and
more open to different points of view, than the grounds relied upon by
the Court thus far and which are now set aside by the Court.

13. We have referred also to the care that the Court must have, in
selecting one among several possible grounds for a decision on jurisdic-
tion, for the implications and possible consequences for other cases. In
that sense, we believe that paragraph 40 of the Judgment does not
adequately reflect the proper role of the Court as a judicial institution.
The Judgment thus goes back on decisions previously adopted by the
Court, whereas it was free to choose the ground upon which to base them
and was under no obligation to rule in the present case on its jurisdiction
ratione personae. Moreover, this approach appears to leave some doubt
as to whether Yugoslavia was a party, between 1992 and 2000, to the
United Nations Genocide Convention. Such an approach could call into
question the solutions adopted by the Court with respect to its jurisdic-
tion in the case brought by Bosnia and Herzegovina against Serbia and
Montenegro for the application of the Genocide Convention. We regret
that the Court has decided to take such a direction.

(Signed) Raymond RANJEVA.
(Signed) Gilbert GUILLAUME.
(Signed) Rosalyn Hiccins.
(Signed) Pieter KOOIMANS.
(Signed) Awn Shawkat AL-KHASAWNEH.
(Signed) Thomas BUERGENTHAL.
(Signed) Nabil ELARABY.

59


209

SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE KOROMA

Doubts about the Order — Wider ramifications of dispute in the light of legal
principles and changed circumstances — Application not without merit —
Requirements for indication of provisional measures — Risk of injury — Its
amelioration by change of functions — Whether rights of the Democratic Repub-
lic of the Congo were affected — Legal issues to be addressed if matter gets to
the merits.

I voted in favour of this Order, not without some doubts and hesita-
tions, because of the wider ramifications surrounding the case itself and
the legal principles involved. The case involves fundamental principles of
law, national and wider community interests and, not least, the circum-
stances which arose since the Court became seised of the Application for
provisional measures.

Given the competing legal principles and the prevailing circumstances,
the request by the Applicant for the indication of provisional measures,
in order to preserve its rights, cannot be judged to be without merit, let
alone “moot”, without object or frivolous. There are serious issues which
would require adjudication should the matter reach the merits phase.

Flowing from its Statute and its jurisprudence, the Court will grant a
request for an interim measure of protection if a dispute exists and if the
requirements of urgency and likelihood of irreparable harm to the parties’
rights or interests are established. In other words, the Court will indicate
provisional measures where a dispute exists between the parties and the
requirements of urgency and irretrievable damage are present and real.

According to the Application, both the existence and execution of the
international warrant — the subject-matter of the dispute — would not
only have an adverse effect on Mr. Yerodia Ndombasi in the perform-
ance of his functions as Foreign Minister, but will also cause irretrievable
damage to his rights. In my view, the risk of that happening could not be
said not to have existed. But that risk notwithstanding, Mr. Ndombasi
ceased to be entrusted with the portfolio of Foreign Minister, as a result
of a Cabinet reshuffle in Kinshasa. This development could not have
been without significance for the Court in determining whether or not to
grant the request for provisional measures as far as Mr. Ndombasi was
concerned. The Court, rightly, in my view, took judicial cognizance of
this development, as it was part of the case of the Democratic Repub-
lic of the Congo that the existence of the arrest warrant prevented

31
210 ARREST WARRANT (SEP. OP. KOROMA)

Mr. Ndombasi from performing his functions as Foreign Minister, which
in turn ran the risk of having a negative impact on the rights of the Demo-
cratic Republic of the Congo in the conduct of its foreign policy. The
Court concluded that, with Mr. Ndombasi no longer serving as Foreign
Minister, the urgency which had attended his functions as Foreign Min-
ister had become somewhat diminished or reduced. While it is not un-
reasonable to reach this conclusion as far as Mr. Ndombasi is concerned,
I wonder if this response is adequate as far as the sovereign rights of the
Congo as sovereign State are concerned. I also entertain some doubts
regarding the extent of the injury which may have been caused to the
interests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a result of the issue
of the warrant and the international responsibility of the Kingdom of
Belgium for this.

Finally, the Order also acknowledges the willingness of the Parties to
act in good faith, in addressing the difficulties caused by the issuance of
the arrest warrant with a view to achieving a resolution of the dispute, if
called upon to do so by the Court. In my view, the Court should have
embodied this plea within the confines of the Order. The jurisprudence of
this Court, as well as that of its predecessor, the Permanent Court, has
made exhortatory calls on parties not to take steps capable of prejudicing
the rights claimed or of aggravating the dispute submitted to the Court
(Electricity Company of Sofia and Bulgaria, Judgment, 1939, P.CIJ.,
Series A/B, No. 79, p. 199). A similar call would, in my view, have been
useful and in accordance with the judicial function of the Court.

Against this background, and in view of the importance of the legal
issues involved, the Court’s finding that the object of the claim has not
disappeared, together with its decision to consider the case with the
utmost despatch, is both judicious and appropriate under the circum-
stances.

(Signed) Abdul G. Koroma.

32


                                                                                224

            Separate opinion of Judge Abraham

[Translation]

   Agreement with the operative part of the Judgment in its rejection of the first
preliminary objection — Disagreement with the Court’s reasoning in finding the
existence of a dispute between the Parties — Conception of “dispute” alien to that
accepted in the Court’s prior jurisprudence — Mistaken failure to be at all realistic
in identifying a dispute — Failure to determine whether dispute exists as of the
date the Court decides — Pointlessness of seeking to ascertain the date on which
the dispute arose — Incorrect requirement of prior notice of claims by the applicant
as a condition for the existence of a dispute — In the present case, existence of a
dispute over questions within the scope of CERD well before August 2008.

   1. I have voted in favour of rejecting — as subparagraph (1) (a) of the
operative part does — Russia’s first preliminary objection, based on the
alleged absence when Georgia filed its Application of a dispute between
the two States with respect to the interpretation or application of the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Dis-
crimination (CERD).
   I have on the other hand voted against subparagraph (1) (b) of the
operative part, in which the Judgment upholds the second preliminary
objection, based on the assertion that the Application was preceded nei-
ther by an attempt to settle the dispute by negotiation nor by resort to the
special procedures established by CERD.
   2. My reasons for believing that the Court should also have rejected
the second preliminary objection, and should ultimately have found juris-
diction to adjudicate the case, are set out in detail in the joint dissenting
opinion appended to the present Judgment, which it has been my honour
to sign together with a number of my colleagues.
   In the present separate opinion, my purpose is to explain why, notwith-
standing my concurrence in rejecting the first preliminary objection, I
have serious reservations about the Court’s reasoning in arriving at this
conclusion.
   3. First of all, I am struck by the fact that the greater part of the
40-page long discussion in the Judgment is devoted to the first prelimi-
nary objection (from page 81, paragraph 23, to page 120, paragraph 114),
whereas the second is dealt with in 20 pages (from page 120, paragraph 115,
to page 140, paragraph 184).
   4. While no more than a hint, this suggests at first glance that a certain
bias most likely crept into the Court’s approach.
   Of the four preliminary objections raised by the Russian Federation
with a view to convincing the Court that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain
Georgia’s Application on the merits, the second alone, in my opinion,

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       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)           225

raised a difficulty — indeed a number of them. This was the objection to
the effect that the procedural conditions laid down in Article 22 of the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Dis-
crimination (CERD) were not satisfied at the date the Court was seised,
thereby rendering the clause — the only basis of jurisdiction relied on by
Georgia — inoperative in the present case. I can well understand that this
objection may have warranted extensive consideration by the Court —
even though my conclusion upon completion of that discussion was not
the same as the majority’s.

   5. By contrast, none of the other three objections (initially) presented
to the Court justified lengthy treatment in the Judgment, since for various
reasons none of the three should have retained the Court’s attention for
very long.
   6. This is obviously the case for the third and fourth preliminary objec-
tions.
   The Judgment simply states (in paragraph 185) that the Court has no
need to consider them, since it is upholding the second objection. This is
logical and by itself calls for no comment.
   But, even if the Court had rejected the first two preliminary objections
(not just the first), which I think it should have done, there would have
been no need for it to give much consideration to the third and fourth
objections. This is because Russia in the oral proceedings abandoned its
third objection (lack of jurisdiction ratione loci) as a preliminary objec-
tion, arguing itself that it was not of an exclusively preliminary character
and therefore should not be considered at this stage, and because the
fourth objection (lack of jurisdiction ratione temporis) was of no practical
significance, since Georgia’s claims against the Respondent related to
events occurring after 2 July 1999, when CERD entered into force
between the Parties.

    7. In my view, the Court should have similarly disposed of the first
preliminary objection without needing to dwell upon it, since this objec-
tion, based on the alleged lack of any dispute between the Parties
concerning the interpretation or application of CERD, did not stand
 up to any scrutiny whatsoever, not even the most cursory. The Court
 ultimately arrived at the conclusion that this objection was baseless
 and should be rejected — a conclusion which I cannot help but share —
 but only after long, laboured reasoning, which I can support only to a
 very limited extent. It is not only that the reasoning is needlessly long,
 whereas the right response was simple. Prolixity is a venial sin, one which
 this writer would be careful not to condemn too severely, out of fear
 that he himself may be judged just as harshly. More serious to my mind
 is that the approach taken in the Judgment in the discussion on pages 81
 to 120 is open to substantive criticism on several grounds, including most
 importantly that it reflects — more or less implicitly — a conception
  of the meaning of “dispute” far too removed from what I believe to be

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       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)             226

the more correct conception to be seen in the Court’s jurisprudence to
date.

    8. I shall first observe that until the present case the Court, whenever
required to decide on a preliminary objection based on the respondent’s
contention that there was no dispute, has made its decision — rejecting
the objection — in a few short paragraphs, and has made the determina-
tion as of the date on which it was ruling, finding that the parties held
clearly conflicting views at that date on the matters constituting the sub-
ject of the application and consequently that a dispute existed between
them.
    9. Three relatively recent precedents are significant in this regard : the
cases concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugo
 slavia), the Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria
 (Cameroon v. Nigeria), and Certain Property (Liechtenstein v. Germany).

   10. In the first of those cases, the Court dealt with the respondent’s
objection founded on the lack of a dispute between the parties in para-
graphs 27 to 29 of its Judgment of 11 July 1996 on the preliminary objec-
tions. After summarizing Bosnia and Herzegovina’s submissions as made
at the end of the proceedings, in essence requesting the Court to adjudge
that Yugoslavia had variously violated the Genocide Convention and to
order the respondent to make reparation for the consequences of the vio-
lations committed, the Court stated :

       “While Yugoslavia has refrained from filing a Counter‑Memorial
    on the merits and has raised preliminary objections, it has nevertheless
    wholly denied all of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s allegations, whether
    at the stage of proceedings relating to the requests for the indication
    of provisional measures, or at the stage of the present proceedings
    relating to those objections.” (Application of the Convention on the
    Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and
    Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia), Preliminary Objections, Judgment,
     I.C.J. Reports 1996 (II), p. 614, para. 28.)
The Court then immediately added :
      “In conformity with well‑established jurisprudence, the Court
    accordingly notes that there persists ‘a situation in which the two sides
    hold clearly opposite views’ . . . and that, by reason of the rejection
    by Yugoslavia of the complaints formulated against it by Bosnia and
    Herzegovina, ‘there is a legal dispute’ between them.” (Ibid., pp. 614-
    615, para. 29.)
  11. In the second case, the Court responded to a similar objection by
Nigeria in paragraphs 87 to 93 of its Judgment of 11 June 1998 on the
preliminary objections.

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       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)               227

  After recalling the criteria for a “dispute” enunciated in the Mavrom-
matis Palestine Concessions Judgment and in the Judgment on prelimi-
nary objections in the South West Africa case, as the present Judgment
does in paragraph 30, the Court observed that there could be “no doubt
about the existence of disputes” between the Parties over part of the
course of their land boundary, adding at the same time :
     “a disagreement on a point of law or fact, a conflict of legal views . . .
     need not necessarily be stated expressis verbis. In the determination
     of the existence of a dispute, as in other matters, the position or the
     attitude of a party can be established by inference, whatever the pro-
     fessed view of that party.” (Land and Maritime Boundary between
     Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v. Nigeria), Preliminary Objec-
     tions, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1998, p. 315, para. 89.)
   The Court then noted that : although Nigeria maintained that there was
no dispute between it and Cameroon concerning the boundary delimi
tation “as such”, it had “constantly been reserved in the manner in which
it . . . presented its own position” (ibid., para. 91) ; but that Nigeria in any
event had “not indicated its agreement with Cameroon on the course of
that boundary . . . and [had] not informed the Court of the position which
it [would] take in the future on Cameroon’s claims” (ibid., p. 317,
para. 93). The Court concluded its reasoning thus :
        “Nigeria is entitled not to advance arguments that it considers are
     for the merits at the present stage of the proceedings ; in the circum-
     stances however, the Court finds itself in a situation in which it cannot
     decline to examine the submission of Cameroon on the ground that
     there is no dispute between the two States.” (Ibid.)

   12. In the third case, the Court considered Germany’s objection
founded on the lack of a dispute in paragraphs 24 to 27 of its 10 Febru-
ary 2005 Judgment on the preliminary objections and dealt with it with
dispatch. It first repeated the time-honoured pronouncements from the
Mavrommatis and South West Africa cases (Certain Property (Liechten-
stein v. Germany), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2005,
p. 18, para. 24). It then observed : “Germany . . . for its part denies alto-
gether the existence of a dispute with Liechtenstein” (ibid., p. 18, para. 25).
But it also noted that : “Germany considers . . . that, in the case of Liech-
tenstein, German courts simply applied their consistent case law to what
were deemed German external assets under the . . . Convention” (on the
Settlement of Matters Arising out of the War and the Occupation, signed
at Bonn in 1952) (ibid., p. 19, para. 25). For the Court, this provided a
sufficient basis on which to find that “in the present proceedings
complaints of fact and law formulated by Liechtenstein against Germany
 are denied by the latter” and to conclude that, “[i]n conformity with
 well‑established jurisprudence . . ., ‘[b]y virtue of this denial, there is a
legal dispute’ between Liechtenstein and Germany” (ibid.).

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       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)              228

    13. Three characteristics of the Court’s past approach in responding to
an objection alleging the absence of a dispute between the Parties may be
drawn from these three precedents, which accord so strongly with one
another (and the cases concerning East Timor (Portugal v. Australia),
(Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1995, pp. 99‑100, paras. 21‑22) and Northern
Cameroons (Cameroon v. United Kingdom) (Preliminary Objections, Judg
ment, I.C.J. Reports 1963, p. 27) may be cited in further support).
    14. First, in determining whether there is a “dispute”, the Court takes
a strictly realistic and practical view, free of all hints of formalism. It is
enough for the Court to find that the two parties hold opposing views on
the matters referred to the Court, and this difference may be evidenced in
any manner. Before the proceedings were initiated, the parties may have
engaged in an official exchange, in the form of a protest or claim made by
one and rejected by the other ; that can help to establish the existence of
a dispute and define its subject, but it is never an absolute requirement in
the eyes of the Court. Thus, the Court in the Liechtenstein v. Germany
case referred to bilateral consultations between the Parties before the
Court was seised. In them Germany had let it be known that it did not
agree with Liechtenstein, but the Court did not consider this to be conclu-
sive : according to the Court, these consultations had “evidentiary value”
in support of the conclusion it had otherwise come to, namely that a
dispute existed between the Parties (Certain Property (Liechtenstein v.
 Germany), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2005, p. 19,
 para. 25). A State’s position on a given matter may be inferred simply
 from its conduct, even if that position has not been stated expressis verbis
 (Cameroon v. Nigeria, cited above). All that matters is that the Court must
 find that the parties hold conflicting positions on the questions forming the
 subject of the application — this finding being strictly one of substance, not
 form — and that these questions fall ratione materiae within the scope of
 the compromissory clause or whatever other provision the applicant is rely-
 ing on as the basis for the Court’s jurisdiction.

   15. Secondly, in determining whether a dispute exists, the Court does
so as of the date on which it decides (i.e., generally, the date of its judg-
ment on the preliminary objections). Obviously, the dispute, by definition,
concerns facts and situations predating the seisin of the Court ; thus, it
can be stated that as a rule the dispute already exists when the proceed-
ings are instituted. But for the Court what must matter is that the dispute
exists at the date when it determines whether it has jurisdiction ; more
importantly, in making that determination the Court takes into account
all elements — even those arising after the case was commenced — liable
to show that the dispute exists and endures. That is why the Court in the
cited precedents places the greatest importance on the respondent’s posi-
tions on the merits of the case as expressed in the course of the judicial
proceedings, including in the arguments on the preliminary objections. It

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       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)               229

is often by reference to these stated positions that it is possible to con-
clude that a dispute exists. Even where a respondent remains cautious
or ambiguous in the preliminary objections stage as to its final positions,
this is not sufficient to convince the Court that there is no dispute
(Cameroon v. Nigeria, cited above).

   16. Thirdly, it has never been a concern of the Court in any of the
precedents examined to ascertain the exact date on which a dispute came
into being. And it is easy to see why : as a general rule, it does not matter
whether the dispute first arose between the parties long or shortly before
the application was filed. It is necessary and sufficient if the dispute exists
when the Court is seised (which can be shown by subsequently occurring
facts) and subsists on the date on which the Court determines whether the
conditions for the exercise of its jurisdiction have been met.
   17. True, there is one situation in which the Court concerns itself with
determining the exact date on which the dispute between the parties crys-
tallized. That is in the context of territorial disputes. But this is because in
such cases the date has a significant impact in the judicial examination of
the arguments : the date the dispute crystallized is the “critical date”, after
which actions taken by a State party to the dispute will generally be
regarded as carrying no weight in establishing or proving its claim of ter-
ritorial sovereignty (for example, Territorial and Maritime Dispute between
Nicaragua and Honduras in the Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v. Honduras),
Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2007 (II), pp. 697‑698, para. 117).

   In all other situations the notion of “crystallization of the dispute” is
inoperative and there is therefore no need to determine the date on which
it occurred, because — and this is self‑evident — judicial reasoning is not
an exercise in historical research. The only questions to be decided are
those which have legal significance.
   18. It might be thought that the Court departed from the rule described
above in the Liechtenstein v. Germany case : in its Judgment of 10 Febru-
ary 2005, the Court stated that the dispute did not have its source or
real cause in decisions given by German courts in the 1990s but in legal
acts from the more distant past, specifically from before 1980 (Certain
Property (Liechtenstein v. Germany), Preliminary Objections, Judgment,
I.C.J. Reports 2005, p. 26, paras. 51‑52).

   But when it made this statement the Court was not seeking to deter-
mine the date the dispute arose, or “crystallized” — and it would have
served no purpose to do so. The Court was endeavouring to define the
date of the “facts” or “situations” causing the dispute for purposes of
applying Article 27 (a) of the European Convention for the Peaceful
Settlement of Disputes, the basis of jurisdiction relied on. Under that pro-
vision, “disputes relating to facts or situations prior to the entry into
force of this Convention as between the parties to the dispute”, i.e., prior

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       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)             230

to 1980 in that case, are excluded from the jurisdiction of the Court.
Thus, what the Court had to determine was not the date on which
the dispute arose, but the date of the facts or situations to which the
 dispute “related”. It was careful to distinguish the two issues (Certain
  Property (Liechtenstein v. Germany), Preliminary Objections, Judgment,
  I.C.J Reports 2005, p. 25, para. 48) before going on to decide the second
alone, in a way favourable to the respondent’s objection to jurisdiction
ratione temporis.
    19. The present Judgment, specifically that part of it dealing with the
first preliminary objection, stands in stark contrast to the precedents cited
above, which built up a clear, coherent, continuous and, in my opinion,
convincing case law.
    20. The unusually long discussion of the issue of the existence of the
dispute is merely the visible evidence of a two‑fold departure from the
existing jurisprudence.
    21. First, if the Court needed so many pages to arrive at the conclusion
that there was a dispute between Georgia and Russia concerning the
application of CERD, it was because it was absolutely determined to
ascertain the date on which that dispute arose. In fact, much more space
is devoted in the Judgment to showing — unconvincingly, I think — that
no such dispute arose before August 2008 (this is the purpose served by
paragraphs 23 to 105), than to establishing that it arose in August 2008,
just before the case was referred to the Court (this is dealt with in just
eight paragraphs (Judgment, paras. 106-113)).

   22. I am still trying to identify the legal reasons for which the Court
devoted so much space to deciding a pointless question, in a way counter
to all the precedents. Indeed, no inference is drawn in the Judgment —
nor could any be — from the intermediate conclusion set out in para-
graph 105, namely, that no legal dispute arose between the Parties
between 1999 and July 2008 with respect to the Russian Federation’s
compliance with its obligations under CERD. It is enough for such a dis-
pute to have arisen afterwards, that is to say, not later than in August 2008,
for the case to have been referred to the Court under conditions entitling
it to exercise jurisdiction — provided that the other conditions on exercise
were met, and this relates to other preliminary objections raised by the
Respondent. Thus, strictly speaking, paragraph 105 has no legal bearing
and nor do the dozens of paragraphs leading up to it (at least from para-
graph 50 onwards). I would add that, even if it were to be conceded that
the dispute only arose — in other words, emerged — in August 2008,
which I do not think to be the case, this would not mean that Georgia
was precluded, for this reason alone, from bringing claims before the
Court concerning pre‑August 2008 acts attributable to Russia : the date
on which a dispute arises is one thing, the subject of the dispute, i.e., the
facts and situations that the dispute concerns, is another, as noted in the
Judgment in the Liechtenstein v. Germany case (see paragraph 18 above).
Accordingly, the discussion leading up to paragraph 105 in the Judgment,

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       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)              231

which has no actual impact on the issue of the existence of a dispute, is
equally without consequence in delineating the subject ratione temporis.

   23. The only purpose served in this case by the Court’s unusual
approach in examining the first preliminary objection is a purely practical
one and has to do exclusively with the second preliminary objection.
Since the Court is going to conclude much later (Judgment, para. 147)
that Article 22 of CERD lays down conditions at least one of which must
be met for it to have jurisdiction, and since this is going to lead it to con-
sider whether Georgia, before seising the Court, attempted to settle its
dispute with Russia by diplomatic negotiation, the intermediate conclu-
sion in paragraph 105 will save the Court time in its consideration of this
issue by circumscribing its examination to any actions taken by the Appli-
cant in August 2008.
   In brief, the second part of the Judgment has been shortened in propor-
tion to the needless and overlong passages included in the first. Let it be
assumed that pragmatism is well served here ; the same cannot be said of
legal rigour or of the requisite clarity that proscribes conflating separate
issues.
   24. And the second departure from the case law precedents which I
regret in the part of the Judgment on the first objection is caused precisely
by the confusion which the Judgment establishes to some extent between
the two preliminary objections it addresses.
   As I said above, the approach taken by the Court whenever it has been
called upon to decide whether a dispute existed has without fail been a
strictly realistic, not formalistic, one. Earlier exchanges between the par-
ties, consultations, demands and protests may sometimes be helpful in
establishing or confirming the existence of a dispute : they have never
been considered an absolute requirement. A dispute exists if the parties,
when they appear before the Court, hold opposing views on the questions
the applicant (correctly or not) seeks to submit for judicial determination.
That suffices. Whether or not the parties debated these questions before-
hand does not matter, although this takes on obvious relevance where it
must be determined whether the prior‑negotiations requirement — if
there is one — has been met. It has none where it is merely a matter of
ascertaining whether a dispute exists. For example, if a State performs an
act deemed by another State to be a violation of the first State’s inter
national obligations and that act is also liable to harm the second State’s
own rights and interests, then there is a dispute. In my view, it is not
necessary for the allegedly injured State to have formally protested to the
State which it considers responsible for the wrongful act. A protest may
be the first step in a process to settle a dispute diplomatically ; it is not a
sine qua non for the existence itself of the dispute. When a State acts in a
certain way, it is presumed to consider its action to be in compliance with
its international legal obligations. If another State holds a conflicting
view, there is then and there a “disagreement on a point of law or fact, a
conflict of legal views”, in the words of the celebrated dictum from the

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       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)              232

Mavrommatis Judgment (Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions, Judgment
No. 2, 1924, P.C.I.J., Series A, No. 2, p. 11). A State that considers itself
to have been injured may therefore seise the Court without as a general
rule being required first to give notice of its claims to the State having
acted in a way it deems unlawful.
   25. Yet the Judgment rather clearly departs from this approach to a
“dispute”, which I would call a “substantive” approach, in favour of one
more of “form”, which appears to require the applicant State before com-
mencing proceedings to inform the respondent which of its actions are
deemed wrongful by the applicant and why. Plainly, the Judgment does
not require the prior notice of grievances to be given in any specific form.
It is also clearly accepted (in paragraph 30) that the State asserting the
claim need not specify the treaty the respondent State is accused of hav-
ing breached, provided that the applicant sets out in substance the subject
of the rule alleged to have been violated. Paragraphs 30 and 31 neverthe-
less appear to make the existence of a dispute subject to satisfaction of a
two‑pronged condition : one State must have asserted a claim against
another, and the other must have rejected it. Even though no specific
form is required for either the claim or its rejection, I think that this
involves an unfortunate confusion of the question of whether a dispute
exists, which the Court must answer in the affirmative if it is to be able to
perform its judicial role in contentious proceedings, with the question of
prior negotiations, which constitute a condition for the Court’s exercise
of jurisdiction only in those exceptional cases where the applicable juris-
dictional clause so provides.

  I fear that the Court has conflated the two questions in the present
case, perhaps in part because it was intent on determining the exact date
on which the dispute arose by seeking the manifestation of it in the
exchanges between the Parties and by laying the groundwork, in respond-
ing to the first objection, for its response to the second.
  26. Last but not least, I shall add that, if we agree to make the effort —
a pointless one, in my opinion — of determining when the dispute first
emerged, and regardless of the broader or narrower definition of dispute
we might apply, we end up at a date well before August 2008 anyway.

    The 26 July 2004 letter from the Georgian President to his Russian
counterpart already clearly alleged that Russia’s peacekeeping military
forces in South Ossetia were not impartial and were (deliberately) failing
to protect the ethnic Georgian population from attacks by Ossetian
illegal armed formations. In his response of 14 August 2004, the President
 of the Russian Federation rejected these accusations, calling Tbilisi’s accus
 ations against the Russian peacekeeping forces “propaganda”.

  The statement made on 26 January 2006 by the Special Envoy of the
President of Georgia to the United Nations Security Council, which is

                                                                           166

       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)            233

quoted in paragraph 84 of the Judgment, is even clearer. After explicitly
accusing Russia of having distanced itself from supporting the principle
of Georgia’s territorial integrity, the Special Envoy added that this
“change of position” meant an “endorsement of ethnic cleansing of more
than 300,000 citizens of Georgia”. After quoting the statement, the Court
observes : “the reference to ‘ethnic cleansing’ does not include an allega-
tion that the Russian Federation participated in, or facilitated, that
action”. Granted, but great insight is hardly needed to see that the alle
gation that Russia was “endorsing” ethnic cleansing of “more than
300,000 citizens of Georgia” was an accusation that could be linked with
Article 2 of CERD, which is not limited to prohibiting States from engag-
ing in or sponsoring racial discrimination but also places them under an
obligation to “prohibit” and “bring to an end” racial discrimination by
any group or organization (Art. 2, para. 1 (d)).

    Similarly, the statement made by Georgia’s Permanent Representative
 to the United Nations at a press conference on 3 October 2006, which is
 quoted in paragraph 92, accuses the Russian peacekeeping force of lack-
 ing impartiality and draws a direct correlation between this lack of impar-
 tiality and the impossibility for “ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands
 of Georgian citizens” to return to their homes. Nothing is made of this in
 the Judgment, in which this too is apparently not seen as an allegation
 relating to CERD.
    This is also the case of the 26 September 2007 address by the President
 of Georgia to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he asserted
 that Abkhazia had suffered “one of the more abhorrent, horrible . . .
ethnic cleansings of the twentieth century”, immediately adding : “In the
 time since Russian peacekeepers were deployed there, more than
 2,000 Georgians have perished and a climate of fear has persisted” (see
 paragraph 94 of the Judgment).
    It is equally surprising that the Judgment accords no importance to an
 official statement made by the Georgian Foreign Ministry on 22 Decem-
 ber 2006 that is referred to, but not quoted, in paragraph 93. In that
 statement Russia is accused of offering “an open support and armaments
 to the separatist regimes [which] . . . have conducted an ethnic cleansing
 of Georgians” and of subjecting Georgians living in Russian territory to
 “ethnic harassment”. The accompanying comment can only be described
 as puzzling : the reference to “ethnic cleansing by the Russian Federation
 [was] with respect to events which took place in the early 1990s”. But
 there is nothing in the statement itself to support this interpretation.

  One cannot help but be equally astonished by the treatment given in
the Judgment to two press releases from the Georgian Foreign Ministry,
dated 19 April 2008 and 17 July 2008 and quoted in paragraphs 97 and
104, respectively, of the Judgment. The first challenged Russia’s policy in
regions said to have been the subject of “de facto annexation” ; Georgia

                                                                         167

       convention on racial discrimination (sep. op. abraham)            234

describes that policy as one of “neglect of human rights of an absolute
majority of the regions’ population — victims of ethnic cleansing”. The
second accused Russia of seeking “to legalize results of the ethnic cleans-
ing . . . conducted through Russian citizens in order to make easier
annexation of the integral part of Georgia’s . . . territory”. In both cases
the Court considers that the documents cited contain “no claim” of a
breach by Russia of its obligations in respect of eliminating racial dis-
crimination. It is difficult to see how the cited statements can be thought
unrelated to the obligations of the State accused of violating CERD,
unless “legalizing” ethnic cleansing, that is to say, taking action to ensure
that its consequences continue, is to be considered outside the scope of a
convention aimed at combating racial discrimination. That is not my
view.

   27. There is no need to point out that from the start of this series of
increasingly intense accusations, i.e., beginning with President Putin’s
response to President Saakashvili on 14 August 2004, Russia constantly
rejected the allegations and continues to do so today more than ever.
Russia’s position, which its Agent confirmed before the Court at the hear-
ings, specifically on 13 September 2010, is that for some 15 years it acted
in the region as facilitator of negotiations and peacekeeper between Geor-
gia and the separatist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that in
doing so it acted with complete impartiality and without taking part,
directly or indirectly, in acts of “ethnic cleansing” carried out against the
Georgian population, and that furthermore, had it not so acted, Georgia
would have asked the Russian forces to leave long before 1 Septem-
ber 2008.
   28. The stage in the proceedings in which the Court’s jurisdiction is
examined involves no determination whatsoever of the truth or error in
the arguments presented. But the dispute manifestly exists and incontro-
vertibly relates to “the interpretation or application” of CERD, since it is
more than plausible to maintain that “ethnic cleansing” is among the
types of conduct prohibited by CERD and that the obligation on the
States parties is not merely to refrain from such conduct themselves but
to do everything possible to put an end to it. If the date on which the
dispute arose had to be ascertained — which I think is completely point-
less from the legal perspective — it may possibly have been as early as in
2004, but certainly in 2006.
   29. However, I cannot but agree with the Court’s ultimate conclusion,
namely, that on the date on which the Application was filed there was indeed
a dispute between the Parties with respect to the interpretation or applica-
tion of CERD, and that is why I voted, despite all the reservations expressed
above, on this point in favour of the operative part of the Judgment.

                                             (Signed) Ronny Abraham.

                                                                         168


892

       DECLARATION OF JUDGE PARRA-ARANGUREN

   1. Notwithstanding my vote in favour of the operative clause of the
Judgment, I feel it necessary to make the following point.
   2. Paragraph 136 of the Judgment states : “the Court considers that
the provisions of the Pact of Bogotá and the declarations made under the
optional clause represent two distinct bases of the Court’s jurisdiction
which are not mutually exclusive”.
   3. The conclusion reached in paragraph 136 is supported by making ref-
erence to the Judgment in the case Border and Transborder Armed Actions
(Nicaragua v. Honduras), Jurisdiction and Admissibility (Judgment, I.C.J.
Reports 1988, p. 85, para. 36) and to a quotation from the 1939 Judgment of
the Permanent Court in the case Electricity Company of Sofia and Bulgaria
(Belgium v. Bulgaria) (Judgment, 1939, P.C.I.J., Series A/B, No. 77, p. 76).
   4. However, the Armed Actions decision does not support this conclu-
sion in the present Judgment, because as is indicated in paragraph 134,
“the Court was merely responding to and rejecting the arguments by
Honduras”.
   5. The quotation from the Electricity Company of Sofia and Bulgaria
(Belgium v. Bulgaria) Judgment of 1939 is not applicable, because in the
present case there is no “multiplicity of agreements concluded accepting
the compulsory jurisdiction” of the Court.
   6. As indicated in paragraph 122 of the Judgment, Nicaragua and
Colombia made declarations on 24 September 1929 and 30 October 1937
respectively, under Article 36 of the Statute of the Permanent Court of
International Justice, which are deemed to be acceptances of the compul-
sory jurisdiction of this Court under Article 36, paragraph 5, of its Stat-
ute. However, they made a new declaration under Article 36, para-
graph 2, of the Statute of the Court as prescribed in Article XXXI of the
Pact of Bogotá when they ratified the latter in 1950 and 1968 respectively.
In my opinion, it is not possible for two different declarations to continue
to be simultaneously in force in the relations between Nicaragua and
Colombia, because the second declaration necessarily replaced the first
one in their reciprocal relations.

  7. Therefore I consider that the optional clause declarations made by
Nicaragua and Colombia in 1929 and 1937 respectively are no longer in
force, and for this reason they cannot be invoked as a basis for the juris-
diction of the Court.

                                (Signed) Gonzalo PARRA-ARANGUREN.

64


619

        DE
         u CLARATION DE M. LE JUGE AD HOC MAHIOU

   1. Pour répondre aux exceptions préliminaires invoquées par la RDC
tendant à soutenir que la requête guinéenne serait irrecevable, la Cour
commence par identifier les trois catégories de droits dont la Guinée veut
assurer la protection en recourant à la protection diplomatique et qui
sont les suivants : ceux de M. Diallo en tant qu’individu, ses droits
propres d’associé dans les deux sociétés Africom-Zaïre et Africontainers-
Zaïre et, enfin, les droits desdites sociétés. S’agissant, d’une part, de
l’atteinte aux droits personnels de M. Diallo, résultant notamment de son
arrestation et de son expulsion ainsi que des mauvais traitements subis et,
d’autre part, de l’atteinte à ses droits propres d’associé, je souscris plei-
nement aux conclusions de la Cour selon lesquelles la Guinée a qualité
pour agir, qu’elle a satisfait à la règle de l’épuisement des recours internes
et qu’elle peut donc prendre fait et cause en faveur de son ressortissant
pour la protection de ces deux catégories de droits.
   2. J’ajouterai cependant une brève observation concernant les droits
propres d’associé de M. Diallo pour relever que la Cour a ainsi confirmé
et explicité la position qu’elle avait prise précédemment dans l’affaire de
la Barcelona Traction ; en effet, dans l’arrêt du 15 février 1970, la Cour
avait introduit une distinction entre les droits de la société et les droits
propres des actionnaires en déclarant :

         « La situation est différente si les actes incriminés sont dirigés
      contre les droits propres des actionnaires en tant que tels. Il est bien
      connu que le droit interne leur confère des droits distincts de ceux de
      la société... S’il est porté atteinte à l’un de leurs droits propres, les
      actionnaires ont un droit de recours indépendant. » (Barcelona Trac-
      tion, Light and Power Company, Limited (Belgique c. Espagne),
      deuxième phase, arrêt, C.I.J. Recueil 1970, p. 36, par. 47.)

Il y a donc un droit de recours propre reconnu en faveur de l’actionnaire,
indépendamment de celui ouvert à la société ; il en découle en même
temps la possibilité de mise en œuvre de la protection diplomatique par
l’Etat dont l’actionnaire est le ressortissant en cas d’atteinte à ses droits
propres, quelle que soit la nationalité de la société en cause. Ce droit fait
désormais partie des règles du droit international coutumier puisque tout
Etat est en droit d’exercer sa protection diplomatique en cas de violation
des droits de son ressortissant, et l’article 12 du projet d’articles de la
Commission du droit international (CDI) sur la protection diplomatique,
adopté en 2006, ne fait que confirmer cette règle en disposant ce qui suit :

41

620                AHMADOU SADIO DIALLO (DÉCL. MAHIOU)

         « Dans la mesure où un fait internationalement illicite d’un Etat
      porte directement atteinte aux droits des actionnaires en tant que
      tels, droits qui sont distincts de ceux de la société, l’Etat de nationa-
      lité desdits actionnaires est en droit d’exercer sa protection diploma-
      tique à leur profit. » (Nations Unies, Documents officiels de l’Assem-
      blée générale, doc. A/61/10, rapport de la Commission du droit
      international, cinquante-huitième session, supplément no 10, p. 67.)

   3. S’agissant des droits des sociétés dont M. Diallo est l’unique action-
naire et propriétaire, tout en souscrivant aux prémisses du raisonnement
retenu par la Cour, je ne suis pas en mesure de souscrire à la conclusion
à laquelle elle parvient. En effet, la Cour prend comme point de départ de
son raisonnement la position adoptée à propos de ce problème dans
l’affaire précitée de la Barcelona Traction ; après avoir énoncé la solution
de principe selon laquelle les droits d’une société ne peuvent être protégés
que par l’Etat dont elle a la nationalité et non par l’Etat ou les Etats des
actionnaires, la Cour évoque une éventuelle exception en disant ce qui
suit :
         « Certes on a soutenu que, pour des raisons d’équité, un Etat
      devrait pouvoir assumer dans certains cas la protection de ses res-
      sortissants actionnaires d’une société victime d’une violation du
      droit international. Ainsi, une thèse s’est développée selon laquelle
      l’Etat des actionnaires aurait le droit d’exercer sa protection diplo-
      matique lorsque l’Etat dont la responsabilité est en cause est l’Etat
      national de la société. Quelle que soit la validité de cette thèse, elle ne
      saurait aucunement être appliquée à la présente affaire, puisque
      l’Espagne n’est pas l’Etat national de la Barcelona Traction. » (Bar-
      celona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited (Belgique
      c. Espagne), deuxième phase, arrêt, C.I.J. Recueil 1970, p. 48,
      par. 92.)
   4. Il s’agit donc d’une « thèse » que la Cour s’est limitée à évoquer,
mais sans la discuter ni à fortiori la trancher, car les circonstances de
l’affaire de la Barcelona Traction ne s’y prêtaient pas ; en effet, on était en
présence d’une relation triangulaire mettant en cause trois Etats : l’Es-
pagne en tant que pays d’accueil de la société, le Canada en tant que pays
de la nationalité de la société et la Belgique en tant que pays de la natio-
nalité des actionnaires de la société. On sait qu’une autre occasion s’était
présentée devant la Chambre de la Cour avec l’affaire Elettronica Sicula
S.p.A. (ELSI) (Etats-Unis d’Amérique c. Italie) puisque, cette fois, on
était bien en présence d’une société italienne dont les actionnaires améri-
cains se plaignaient de mesures prises par les autorités italiennes contre
cette société. Toutefois, la Chambre de la Cour a statué et résolu le pro-
blème sans avoir eu à s’interroger sur le débat évoqué en 1970 et il est
tout à fait frappant de constater que la Chambre a passé sous silence
l’affaire de la Barcelona Traction tout au long de l’arrêt du 20 juillet 1989 ;

42

621               AHMADOU SADIO DIALLO (DÉCL. MAHIOU)

ce silence peut paraître étonnant, même s’il est vrai qu’il peut s’expliquer
par le fait que, d’une part, le problème n’a pas été posé clairement devant
la Chambre par la Partie défenderesse, qui n’a pas soulevé la question du
jus standi des Etats-Unis, et, d’autre part, la solution a trouvé son fon-
dement dans le cadre des accords bilatéraux conclus entre l’Italie et les
Etats-Unis en matière de protection des investissements, sans qu’il y ait
lieu de s’interroger outre mesure sur d’autres aspects, notamment le point
de savoir s’il y avait une règle de droit international coutumier pouvant
justifier la protection des actionnaires dans un tel cas.

   5. Voilà que la Cour est à nouveau invitée, avec la présente affaire, à
se pencher sur le même problème pour compléter sa jurisprudence et
apporter les clarifications utiles sur cette question de la protection diplo-
matique des actionnaires. Il est vrai que, entre-temps, la question a mûri
en raison de l’apport de la doctrine, de la pratique des Etats, des conven-
tions internationales bilatérales ou multilatérales, de la jurisprudence des
tribunaux internationaux. Pour autant, la solution n’est pas encore claire
et l’on aurait attendu de la Cour qu’elle tranche la question de savoir s’il
existe une règle coutumière en la matière. La Cour n’a pas répondu à
cette attente parce qu’elle constate qu’il n’y a pas d’éléments suffisam-
ment convaincants pour tirer une conclusion claire et ferme ; cette posi-
tion est sans doute trop prudente, mais elle peut se comprendre dans la
mesure où la Cour n’entend pas faire œuvre de législateur, surtout que la
question est en débat devant les Etats depuis qu’ils sont saisis du projet
d’articles de la CDI sur la protection diplomatique. Il incombe aux Etats
d’indiquer la solution à retenir sur la base des propositions de la CDI et
plus précisément de l’article 11 du projet précité qui dispose :
        « Un Etat de nationalité des actionnaires d’une société ne peut
      exercer sa protection diplomatique à l’égard desdits actionnaires
      lorsqu’un préjudice est causé à la société que :
      a) si la société a cessé d’exister d’après la loi de l’Etat où elle s’est
          constituée pour un motif sans rapport avec le préjudice ; ou
      b) si la société avait, à la date du préjudice, la nationalité de l’Etat
          qui est réputé en être responsable et si sa constitution dans cet
          Etat était une condition exigée par ce dernier pour qu’elle puisse
          exercer ses activités dans le même Etat. » (Rapport précité, p. 59.)
   6. Si une telle solution est retenue, elle me semble tenir compte d’un
équilibre entre la protection légitime des actionnaires et le souci de ne pas
remettre en cause le régime classique de la protection diplomatique ; elle
s’efforce d’identifier les conditions permettant de faire prévaloir une
exception dans ce régime sans cependant aboutir à une ingérence abusive
dans les relations entre un Etat et des sociétés ayant sa nationalité et rele-
vant normalement de sa pleine juridiction. Explicitant et développant le
raisonnement esquissé par la Cour en 1970, la CDI pense qu’il y a une
exception possible à condition que sa mise en œuvre soit subordonnée à
des restrictions afin de ne pas ouvrir la voie à des réclamations excessives

43

622               AHMADOU SADIO DIALLO (DÉCL. MAHIOU)

ou abusives de nature à créer des désordres dans les relations écono-
miques internationales ; ces conditions sont au nombre de deux et tiennent
respectivement à une exigence de nationalité et à une exigence statutaire.
  7. D’une part, la société visée par le préjudice doit avoir la nationalité
de l’Etat qui a pris les mesures préjudiciables ; dans une telle situation, la
protection diplomatique n’existe plus puisque :
— d’un côté, l’Etat national de la société ne va pas l’exercer contre lui-
  même, car on se trouve alors dans la situation décrite par le juge
  Tanaka en 1970 dans son opinion individuelle où « il est impossible,
  en fait comme en droit, de compter que l’Etat national de la société
  protégera les actionnaires » (C.I.J. Recueil 1970, p. 134) ;

— et de l’autre, aucun autre Etat ne peut prendre fait et cause pour
  ladite société faute d’un lien de nationalité.
   Dès lors, si l’on veut offrir aux actionnaires étrangers un minimum de
protection, la seule issue possible est de leur reconnaître le bénéfice de la
protection diplomatique de l’Etat dont ils ont la nationalité. Une telle
solution, très controversée il y a quelques années, l’est moins aujourd’hui
du fait de l’évolution à laquelle on a fait allusion et surtout du climat
beaucoup plus favorable à l’encouragement des investissements étrangers.
   8. D’autre part, la constitution de la société dans cet Etat est requise
pour qu’elle puisse exercer ses activités ; si la société n’a plus le choix pour
l’implantation de son siège social, cette contrainte, qui empêche le jeu
normal de la protection diplomatique en faveur de la société par un autre
Etat, ne doit pas priver les actionnaires étrangers de celle-ci de toute pro-
tection ; ceux-ci doivent pouvoir défendre leurs droits et donc bénéficier
éventuellement du droit à la protection diplomatique de l’Etat dont ils
sont les ressortissants. Il apparaît ainsi qu’il ne s’agit pas de défendre tout
actionnaire de n’importe quelle société, mais de voir les circonstances
dans lesquelles l’exception se justifie et où les conditions requises pour
son invocation sont raisonnables et convaincantes ; dans de telles circons-
tances et conditions, la protection des droits de l’actionnaire se justifie en
tant que dernier recours, ainsi que le relève la Cour dans le paragraphe 88
de l’arrêt.
   La Cour estime que la présente affaire relève de la seconde exception
prévue à l’alinéa b) de l’article 11 du projet d’articles de la CDI que les
commentaires de la Commission éclairent de façon succincte mais suffi-
sante pour en justifier le fondement ; elle déclare dans le paragraphe 88 de
l’arrêt :
         « La théorie de la protection diplomatique par substitution vise en
      effet à offrir une protection aux actionnaires étrangers d’une société
      qui ne pourraient pas invoquer le bénéfice d’un accord international,
      et auxquels aucun autre recours ne serait ouvert, dans la mesure où
      les actes prétendument illicites auraient été commis à l’encontre de la
      société par l’Etat de la nationalité de celle-ci. »

44

623              AHMADOU SADIO DIALLO (DÉCL. MAHIOU)

   9. Cependant, tout en se référant à cette théorie de la protection diplo-
matique, la Cour considère qu’elle ne s’applique pas en l’espèce, rejoi-
gnant ainsi la solution de l’affaire de la Barcelona Traction mais sur un
autre fondement. En effet, après avoir constaté que la première condition
est satisfaite — puisque les deux sociétés en cause ont bien la nationalité
de l’Etat congolais, auteur des actes illicites —, elle estime que la seconde
condition n’est pas satisfaite, puisque cette nationalité résulte d’un libre
choix de leur propriétaire et non d’une exigence du droit local pour que la
protection diplomatique puisse être invoquée. Certes, le choix de la natio-
nalité congolaise a été fait par M. Diallo, mais il apparaît hâtif et contes-
table de conclure que c’est un libre choix comme le fait la Cour dans les
paragraphes 92 et 93 de l’arrêt.
   10. La liberté de choix est plus une apparence qu’une réalité lorsque
l’on analyse le droit congolais. Selon l’ordonnance-loi no 66-341 du 7 juin
1966, toute entreprise dont l’activité principale se situe au Congo était
tenue d’avoir son siège administratif et social dans ce pays. Bien que l’or-
donnance-loi semble distinguer le siège administratif (art. 1) du siège
social, elle finit par les confondre (art. 2-3) et elle impose finalement
d’avoir à la fois le siège administratif et social au Congo dès lors que le
« principal siège d’exploitation est situé au Congo » (art. 1). Etant donné
que le principal — et l’on peut même dire l’unique — siège d’exploitation
des deux sociétés de M. Diallo est effectivement situé au Congo, cela
signifie obligatoirement leur établissement et leur incorporation dans ce
pays. Elles n’avaient pas le choix car, à défaut d’une telle incorporation,
« elles seront rayées d’office du registre du commerce » (art. 2, al. 2)), ce
qui les empêcherait d’exister ou d’avoir des activités au Congo. Par
conséquent, en raison de cette situation de fait et de droit, il semble bien
que, dans cette affaire, on se situe dans la perspective de l’alinéa b) de
l’article 11 du projet de la CDI correspondant à la situation où il serait
légitime que le droit à la protection diplomatique de l’Etat de nationalité
des actionnaires puisse jouer lorsque des mesures préjudiciables ont été
prises par l’Etat contre la société ayant sa nationalité. C’est pourquoi,
tout en souscrivant à la démarche de la Cour, je ne peux cependant sous-
crire ni à l’interprétation qu’elle donne de la législation congolaise ni, par
voie de conséquence, à la conclusion finale qu’elle retient sur cette base à
l’alinéa b) du paragraphe 1 et à l’alinéa c) du paragraphe 3 du dispositif.

   11. Je voudrais maintenant aborder un autre aspect du problème
apparu en raison des développements nouveaux depuis la fin de la pro-
cédure orale. Alors que l’affaire semblait relever du seul alinéa b) de
l’article 11 du projet de la CDI, l’affaire pourrait relever également de
l’alinéa a) de l’article 11, dans la mesure où l’une des deux sociétés
de M. Diallo — la société Africom-Zaïre — aurait disparu du fait des
autorités congolaises qui l’auraient radiée du registre des sociétés établies
dans ce pays.
   12. Dans le paragraphe 22, l’arrêt relève, en se basant sur la lettre du
31 janvier 2007 de la RDC relative à la société Africom-Zaïre, que celle-ci

45

624               AHMADOU SADIO DIALLO (DÉCL. MAHIOU)

aurait « cessé toutes ses activités depuis le milieu des années quatre-
vingt », ce qui aurait mené à la radiation automatique de son immatricu-
lation au registre de commerce. Il s’agit là d’un élément nouveau — sur-
venu depuis la fin de la procédure orale concernant les exceptions
préliminaires — susceptible d’avoir des conséquences directes sur le dérou-
lement de la présente instance qu’il conviendrait d’envisager. Le para-
graphe 59 de l’arrêt fait allusion au problème mais d’une manière qui ne
m’apparaît pas satisfaisante ; il ne suffit pas, à mon avis, pour réserver
toutes les implications à venir et surtout il convient de veiller à ce que la
décision de la Cour sur les exceptions préliminaires n’empêche pas le
demandeur de soulever le problème lorsque l’affaire sera examinée au
fond. En effet, si la disparition d’Africom-Zaïre devait se confirmer, cela
créerait une situation où il n’y aurait plus de possibilité pour cette société
de faire valoir directement ses droits par elle-même et de défendre ainsi
les droits et intérêts de son actionnaire unique. Cette impossibilité défi-
nitive de toute action par l’intermédiaire de la société priverait ainsi son
actionnaire unique de tout recours si on lui refusait le jeu de la protection
diplomatique par la Guinée ; on se trouverait alors devant une solution
injuste contraire non seulement à l’équité, mais aussi aux principes fon-
damentaux régissant les droits de la défense et les droits de l’homme. Ce
problème a préoccupé la Cour, la Commission du droit international et la
doctrine.
   13. Dans l’affaire de la Barcelona Traction, la Cour l’évoque très
expressément en tant que première exception à la règle classique de la
protection diplomatique dans les paragraphes 64 à 68 (C.I.J. Recueil 1970,
p. 40-41). Certes, elle conclut dans cette affaire que la société n’a pas dis-
paru et, de ce fait, cette exception n’était pas pertinente en l’espèce. Tou-
tefois, on peut inférer du raisonnement de la Cour que, si l’hypothèse de
la disparition avait été établie, elle se serait prononcée sans aucun doute
en faveur du jeu de l’exception. C’est la solution retenue dans l’alinéa a)
de l’article 11 précité du projet de la CDI qui en fait la première exception
à la règle générale de la protection diplomatique permettant à l’Etat
national de l’actionnaire d’agir « [s]i la société a cessé d’exister d’après la
loi de l’Etat où elle s’est constituée ». Une telle solution, déjà défendue
dans le passé par une partie de la doctrine, semble maintenant très lar-
gement partagée depuis l’affaire de la Barcelona Traction. En conclusion,
il me semble que la Cour aurait dû dire plus nettement et plus clairement,
dans le présent arrêt, qu’elle réservait expressément la situation pouvant
résulter de la confirmation d’une disparition de la société Africom-Zaïre
avec les conséquences susceptibles d’en découler pour la suite de la pro-
cédure.

                                                (Signé) Ahmed MAHIOU.

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