THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN RULES AND PRINCIPLES

Özet

In spite of the fact that the International Court of Justice (hereinafter ‘the Court’ or the‘ICJ’), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations1 might not be the first internationalcourt to come to mind concerning International Humanitarian Law (IHL)2, it is argued inthis study that its judgments and advisory opinions serve as a base both for the development3of this field of law (IHL), and for the process called “humanization of international law” Grounded on such a point, the purpose of this article is instantiated as to address the relevantjurisprudence of the ICJ regarding IHL such as -contentious cases and advisory opinionsof- Corfu Channel Case5, Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua6,Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons7, Legal Consequences of the Constructionof a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory8 and Armed Activities on the Territoryof Congo9 and to examine these cases for identifying how the Court has approached to thebasic general principles of IHL and then to investigate whether it has -through the findingsof these cases submitted and the requests of advisory opinions transmitted-, really madeany noteworthy and/or original contribution to it, as assumed in the article.To that end, first of all, a general introduction of the subject will be sketched out by focusingspesifically on the (positive) influence of the increase in the rhetoric of the notion of“humanitarian” in international law on the norms of IHL. Following the Introduction,an overview of the significance and the role of international courts and tribunals in internationallaw in general will be given place and discussed briefly. As the underlyingaspect of the study, this part is also planned so as to constitute the primary legal theoreticalframework of the research. In order to achieve our main purpose, starting withthe reasons of the ICJ’s distinguishing role and importance for the matter at hand, nextsection of the article will be devoted to analyzing the case law mentioned above. Lastlyin the Conclusion part, in the light of all these cases, the contribution of the ICJ to IHLwill be attempted to be assessed.