North Sea Continental Shelf Cases: Facts

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North Sea Continental Shelf cases

Germany v Denmark and the Netherlands [1969] ICJ (also known as The North Sea Continental
Shelf cases) were a series of disputes that came to the International Court of Justice in 1969. They
involved agreements among Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands regarding the "delimitation" of
areasrich in oil and gasof the continental shelf in the North Sea.

Facts
Germany's North Sea coast is concave, while the Netherlands' and Denmark's coasts are convex. If the
delimitation had been determined by the equidistance rule ("drawing a line each point of which is
equally distant from each shore"), Germany would have received a smaller portion of the resource-rich
shelf relative to the two other states. Thus Germany argued that the length of the coastlines be used to
determine the delimitation.[1] Germany wanted the ICJ to apportion the Continental Shelf to the
proportion of the size of the state's adjacent land and not by the rule of equidistance.

Judgment
The Court ultimately urged the parties to "abat[e] the effects of an incidental special feature [Germany's
concave coast] from which an unjustifiable difference of treatment could result." In subsequent
negotiations, the states granted to Germany most of the additional shelf it sought.[2] The cases are
viewed as an example of "equity praeter legem"that is, equity "beyond the law"when a judge
supplements the law with equitable rules necessary to decide the case at hand.[3]

Asylum case
Colombia v Peru [1950] ICJ 6 (also known as the Asylum Case) is a public international law case,
decided by the International Court of Justice. The ICJ recognised that the scope of Article 38 of
the Statute of the International Court of Justice encompassed bi-lateral and regional international
customary norms as well as general customary norms, in much the same way as it encompasses
bilateral and multilateral treaties.[1] The Court also clarified that for custom to be definitively proven, it
must be continuously and uniformly executed.

Facts
The Colombian Ambassador in Lima, Peru allowed Vctor Ral Haya de la Torre, head of the American
People's Revolutionary Alliance sanctuary after his faction lost a one-day civil war in Peru on 3 October
1949. The Colombian government granted him asylum, but the Peruvian government refused to grant
him safe passage out of Peru.
Colombia maintained that according to the Conventions in force - the Bolivian Agreement of 1911 on
Extradition, the Havana Convention of 1928 on Asylum, the Montevideo Convention of 1933 on Political
Asylum[2] - and according to American International Law, they were entitled to decide if asylum should
be granted and their unilateral decision on this was binding on Peru.[3]

Judgment
Both submissions of Colombia were rejected by the Court. It was not found that the custom of Asylum
was uniformly or continuously executed sufficiently to demonstrate that the custom was of a generally
applicable character.
Nicaragua v. United States
The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America (1986) ICJ 1 is a public international
law case decided by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ ruled in favor of Nicaragua and
against the United States and awarded reparations to Nicaragua. The ICJ held that the U.S. had
violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Nicaraguan
government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The United States refused to participate in the
proceedings after the Court rejected its argument that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The
U.S. also blocked enforcement of the judgment by the United Nations Security Council and thereby
prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any compensation.[2] Nicaragua, under the later, post-
FSLN government of Violeta Chamorro, withdrew the complaint from the court in September 1992
following a repeal of the law which had required the country to seek compensation.[3]
The Court found in its verdict that the United States was "in breach of its obligations under customary
international law not to use force against another State", "not to intervene in its affairs", "not to violate
its sovereignty", "not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce", and "in breach of its obligations under
Article XIX of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed
at Managua on 21 January 1956."
The Court had 16 final decisions upon which it voted. In Statement 9, the Court stated that while the
U.S. encouraged human rights violations by the Contras by the manual entitled Psychological
Operations in Guerrilla Warfare, this did not make such acts attributable to the U.S.[4

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