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World Court Digest



III. The International Court of Justice
2. THE JURISDICTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
2.10. Concurring Jurisdictions

¤ Military and Paramilitary Activities
(Nicaragua/United States of America)
Merits. J. 27.6.1986
I.C.J. Reports 1986, p. 14

[p. 137] The Court has in this respect to note that the Treaty itself 1 provides in Article XXIV, paragraph 1, as follows:
"Each Party shall accord sympathetic consideration to, and shall afford adequate opportunity for consultation regarding, such representations as the other Party may make with respect to any matter affecting the operation of the present Treaty."

Nicaragua claims that the conduct of the United States is such as drastically to "affect the operation" of the Treaty; but so far as the Court is informed, no representations on the specific question have been made. The Court has therefore first to be satisfied that a claim based on the 1956 FCN Treaty is admissible even though no attempt has been made to use the machinery of Article XXIV, paragraph 1, to resolve the dispute. In general, treaty rules being lex specialis, it would not be appropriate that a State should bring a claim based on a customary-law rule if it has by treaty already provided means for settlement of such a claim. However, in the present case, the operation of Article XXIV, paragraph 1, if it had been invoked, would have been wholly artificial. While Nicaragua does allege that certain activities of the United States were in breach of the 1956 FCN Treaty, it has also claimed, and the Court has found, that they were violations of customary international law. In the Court's view, it would therefore be excessively formalistic to require Nicaragua first to exhaust the procedure of Article XXIV, paragraph 1, before bringing the matter to the Court.

1 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between Nicaragua and United States of America, signed at Managua on 21 January 1956.