| III. | The International Court of Justice |
| 3. | THE PROCEDURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE |
| 3.4. | The Submissions / Scope of the Dispute |
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Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute
(El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening),
Judgment of 11 September 1992,
I.C.J. Reports 1992, p. 351
[p. 574] 360. During the hearings, counsel for El Salvador alluded
to the documents referred to, but not reproduced, in the "Meanguera dossier",
and asked Honduras to concede or agree that such documents did exist; failing
which El Salvador would seek to file the complete documentation under Article 56
of the Rules of Court. Counsel for Honduras declined to do so, contending that
the documents were of little probative value. Counsel for El Salvador renewed
its call to Honduras to admit the existence and content of the Meanguera
dossier. In reply the Honduran Agent stated that Honduras could not say whether
or not it admitted a document without knowing its content, that it was too late
in the proceedings to present further documents, and that Honduras therefore
opposed the admission of the Meanguera dossier. In September 199l, after the
close of the hearings, the Agent of El Salvador submitted to the Chamber
complete sets of all the additional documents referred to in the Meanguera
dossier, "subject to Article 56 of the Rules of Court". The President
of the Chamber, while noting that the submission of further documents to the
Court after the closure of the written proceedings was not a normal part of the
procedure, took the view that it was appropriate to apply to them, by extension
and mutatis mutandis, the provisions of Article 56 of the Rules. A set
of copies of the documents was therefore transmitted to Honduras, which objected
to the admission of the additional documents submitted by El Salvador. After
examining the question the Chamber decided not to authorize the submission of
those documents; it took the view that if the material of the kind included and
referred to in the Meanguera dossier was relevant and appropriate to prove what
El Salvador sought to establish, the material already available was sufficient
for that purpose.
