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III. The International Court of Justice
5. ADVISORY OPINIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
5.2. Request for Advisory Opinion

¤ Difference relating to Immunity
from Legal Process of a Special Rapporteur
of the Commission on Human Rights,
Advisory Opinion of 29 April 1999,
I.C.J. Reports 1999, p. 62

[pp. 80-81] 35. As the Council indicated in the preamble to its decision 1998/297, that decision was adopted by the Council on the basis of the note submitted by the Secretary General on "Privileges and Immunities of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers" (see paragraph 1 above). Paragraph 1 of the operative part of the decision refers expressly to paragraphs 1 to 15 of that note but not to paragraph 21, containing the two questions that the Secretary-General proposed submitting to the Court (see paragraph 20 above). The Court would point out that the wording of the question submitted by the Council is quite different from that proposed by the Secretary-General.

36. Participants in these proceedings have advanced differing views as to what is the legal question to be answered by the Court. The Court observes that it is for the Council - and not for a member State nor for the Secretary-General - to formulate the terms of a question that the Council wishes to ask.

37. The Council adopted its decision 1998/297 without a vote. The Council did not pass upon any proposal that the question to be submitted to the Court should include, still less be confined to, the issue of the exclusive authority of the Secretary-General to determine whether or not acts (including words spoken or written) were performed in the course of a mission for the United Nations and whether such words or acts fall within the scope of the mandate entrusted to an expert on mission for the United Nations. Although the Summary Records of the Council do not expressly address the matter, it is clear that the Council, as the Organ entitled to put the request to the Court, did not adopt the questions set forth at the conclusion of the note by the Secretary-General, but instead formulated its own question in terms which were not contested at that time (see paragraph 20 above). Accordingly, the Court will now answer the question as formulated by the Council.