Massive global win for India at ICJ on Kulbhushan Jadhav

Massive global win for India at ICJ on Kulbhushan Jadhav

New Delhi/The Hague, July 17 (HS): It is a massive global win for India at International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Kulbhushan Jadhav. His death sentence has been suspended by the Court. The verdict has come as a major setback for Pakistan. The Court has also allowed India the consular access. It further said that Pakistan violated Vienna Convention.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN), today held public hearings in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, the Indian national who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani court on spying charges.

The hearing was at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the court. Jadhav has been accused by Pakistan of espionage. India has time and again denied all the charges and maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests. India and Pakistan have already submitted their detailed pleas and responses in ICJ.

The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the UN. It was established by the United Nations Charter in June 1945 and began its activities in April 1946. The seat of the court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). Of the six principal organs of the UN, it is the only one not located in New York.

The court has a twofold role, first, to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States (its judgments have binding force and are without appeal for the parties concerned); and, second, to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by duly authorised UN organs and agencies of the system.

The court is composed of 15 judges elected for a nine-year term by the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations. Independent of the UN Secretariat, it is assisted by a registry, its own international secretariat, whose activities are both judicial and diplomatic, as well as administrative. The official languages of the court are French and English. Also known as the “World Court”, it is the only court of a universal character with general jurisdiction.

The ICJ, a court open only to States for contentious proceedings, and to certain organs and institutions of the UN system for advisory proceedings, should not be confused with the other mostly criminal judicial institutions based in The Hague and adjacent areas, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC, the only permanent international criminal court, which was established by treaty and does not belong to the UN), the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL, an international judicial body with an independent legal personality, established by the United Nations Security Council upon the request of the Lebanese Government and composed of Lebanese and international judges), the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT, mandated to take over residual functions from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (an ad hoc judicial institution which has its seat in The Hague), or the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA, an independent institution which assists in the establishment of arbitral tribunals and facilitates their work, in accordance with the Hague Convention of 1899).