World Court Digest

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I.	Substantive International Law - First Part
8.	VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND RESPONSIBILITY OF STATES
8.3.	Treaty Violations

¤ Case Concerning Armed Activities
on the Territory of the Congo
(New Application: 2002)
(Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Rwanda)
Request for the Indication of Provisional Measures
Order of 10 July 2002

[p. 284 S.O. Mavungu] 45. The issue of the Court’s territorial or ratione loci jurisdiction over violations of human rights alleged to have taken place on the territory of the Applicant and attributable to the Respondent has not been raised at this stage of the proceedings. It is generally accepted that a State party to a convention can incur responsibility if it commits a wrongful act contrary to that convention on the territory of another State party. Thus in the case of Loizidou v. Turkey the European Court of Human Rights, interpreting the term „jurisdiction“ in Article 1 of the European Human Rights Convention, stated the following: „the responsibility of a Contracting Party may also arise when as a consequence of military action – whether lawful or unlawful – it exercises effective control of an area outside its national territory.»¹

1	Cited by Vincent Berger, Jurisprudence de la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme, 2000, p. 554; see also Gérard Cohen-Jonathan, La convention européenne des droits de l’homme, 1989, p. 94.

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