III. | The International Court of Justice |
4. | JUDGMENTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE |
4.3. | Interpretation of Decisions |
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Request for an Examination of the Situation
in Accordance with Paragraph 63 of the
Court's Judgment of 20 December 1974 in the
Nuclear Tests (New Zealand v. France) Case,
I.C.J. Reports 1995, p. 288
[pp. 303-304] 52. Whereas, in expressly laying down, in paragraph 63
of its Judgment of 20 December 1974, that, in the circumstances set out therein,
"the Applicant could request an examination of the situation in
accordance with the provisions of the Statute", the Court
cannot have intended to limit the Applicant's access to legal procedures such as
the filing of a new application (Statute, Art. 40, para. 1), a request for
interpretation (Statute, Art. 60) or a request for revision (Statute, Art. 61),
which would have been open to it in any event;
53. Whereas by inserting the above-mentioned words in paragraph 63 of its
Judgment, the Court did not exclude a special procedure, in the event that the
circumstances defined in that paragraph were to arise, in other words,
circumstances which "affected" the "basis" of the Judgment;
54. Whereas such a procedure appears to be indissociably linked, under that
paragraph, to the existence of those circumstances; and whereas, if the
circumstances in question do not arise, that special procedure is not available;
[pp. 320-321 D.O. Weeramantry] This procedure went beyond the
provision for interpretation of a judgment contained in Article 60 of the
Court's Statute and the provision for revision contained in Article 61. The
Court no doubt considered that in the circumstances before it, it needed to go
beyond either of those provisions. It was seeking to meet a need different from
the need for interpretation or for revision of the Judgment. It was also opening
the door to New Zealand in a manner which reached beyond the period of
limitation attached to applications for revision.
The rationale of the Court's action was totally different from the rationale
underlying revision, for revision involves an alteration or modification of the
Judgment, whereas the Court's action was aimed at preserving the Judgment in its
full integrity, in the event that some event had occurred which undermined the
basis of the Judgment. Moreover, had revision been its intention, there was no
necessity for the Court to make any special provision as the Statute would have
operated automatically.
I therefore see no merit in the submission that an application under
paragraph 63 is an application for revision under another guise. The two
procedures are totally different in conception, nature and operation.