World Court Digest

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III.	The International Court of Justice
3.	THE PROCEDURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
3.5.	Preliminary Objections

¤ Case Concerning the Land and Maritime
Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria
(Cameroon v. Nigeria: Equatorial Guinea Intervening)
Judgment of 10 October 2002

[p. ] 237. The Court would first observe that its finding in its Judgment of 11 June 1998 on the eighth preliminary objection of Nigeria that that preliminary objection did “not have, in the circumstances of the case, an exclusively preliminary character” (I.C.J. Reports 1998, p. 326, para. 118 (2)) requires it to deal now with the preliminary objection before proceeding further on the merits. That this is so follows from the provisions on preliminary objections adopted by the Court in its Rules in 1972 and retained in 1978, which provide that the Court is to give a decision

“by which it shall either uphold the objection, reject it, or declare that the objection does not possess in the circumstances of the case, an exclusively preliminary character. If the Court rejects the objection or declares that it does not possess an exclusively preliminary character, it shall fix time-limits for the further proceedings.” (Rules of Court, Art. 79, para. 7.)

(See Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. United Kingdom), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1998, pp. 27-28, paras. 49-50; Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. United States of America), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1998, pp. 132-134, paras. 48-49; Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Merits, Judgment (I.C.J. Reports 1986, p. 30, para. 40.) Since Nigeria maintains its objection, the Court must now rule on it.

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