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I. | Substantive International Law - First Part |
5. | THE UNITED NATIONS |
5.2. | General Assembly |
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Legality of the Threat or Use
of Nuclear Weapons
Advisory Opinion of 8 July 1996
I.C.J. Reports 1996, p. 226
[pp. 232-233] 11. For the Court to be competent to give an advisory
opinion, it is thus necessary at the outset for the body requesting the opinion
to be authorized by or in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to
make such a request". The Charter provides in Article 96, paragraph 1,
that: "The General Assembly or the Security Council may request the
International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on any legal
question."
Some States which oppose the giving of an opinion by the Court argued that
the General Assembly and Security Council are not entitled to ask for opinions
on matters totally unrelated to their work. They suggested that, as in the case
of organs and agencies acting under Article 96, paragraph 2, of the Charter, and
notwithstanding the difference in wording between that provision and paragraph 1
of the same Article, the General Assembly and Security Council may ask for an
advisory opinion on a legal question only within the scope of their activities.
In the view of the Court, it matters little whether this interpretation of
Article 96, paragraph 1, is or is not correct; in the present case, the General
Assembly has competence in any event to seise the Court. Indeed, Article 10 of
the Charter has conferred upon the General Assembly a competence relating to "any
questions or any matters" within the scope of the Charter. Article 11 has
specifically provided it with a competence to "consider the general
principles ... in the maintenance of international peace and security, including
the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments".
Lastly, according to Article 13, the General Assembly "shall initiate
studies and make recommendations for the purpose of ... encouraging the
progressive development of international law and its codification".
12. The question put to the Court has a relevance to many aspects of the
activities and concerns of the General Assembly including those relating to the
threat or use of force in international relations, the disarmament process, and
the progressive development of international law. The General Assembly has a
long-standing interest in these matters and in their relation to nuclear
weapons. This interest has been manifested in the annual First Committee
debates, and the Assembly resolutions on nuclear weapons; in the holding of
three special sessions on disarmament (1978, 1982 and 1988) by the General
Assembly, and the annual meetings of the Disarmament Commission since 1978; and
also in the commissioning of studies on the effects of the use of nuclear
weapons. In this context, it does not matter that important recent and current
activities relating to nuclear disarmament are being pursued in other fora.
Finally, Article 96, paragraph 1, of the Charter cannot be read as limiting the ability of the Assembly to request an opinion only in those circumstances in which it can take binding decisions. The fact that the Assembly's activities in the above-mentioned field have led it only to the making of recommendations thus has no bearing on the issue of whether it had the competence to put to the Court the question of which it is seised.
[pp. 254-255] 68. According to certain States, the important series
of General Assembly resolutions, beginning with resolution 1653 (XVI) of 24
November 1961, that deal with nuclear weapons and that affirm, with consistent
regularity, the illegality of nuclear weapons, signify the existence of a rule
of international customary law which prohibits recourse to those weapons.
According to other States, however, the resolutions in question have no binding
character on their own account and are not declaratory of any customary rule of
prohibition of nuclear weapons; some of these States have also pointed out that
this series of resolutions not only did not meet with the approval of all of the
nuclear-weapon States but of many other States as well.
69. States which consider that the use of nuclear weapons is illegal
indicated that those resolutions did not claim to create any new rules, but were
confined to a confirmation of customary law relating to the prohibition of means
or methods of warfare which, by their use, overstepped the bounds of what is
permissible in the conduct of hostilities. In their view, the resolutions in
question did no more than apply to nuclear weapons the existing rules of
international law applicable in armed conflict; they were no more than the "envelope"
or instrumentum containing certain pre-existing customary rules of
international law. For those States it is accordingly of little importance that
the instrumentum should have occasioned negative votes, which cannot
have the effect of obliterating those customary rules which have been confirmed
by treaty law.
70. The Court notes that General Assembly resolutions, even if they are not
binding, may sometimes have normative value. They can, in certain circumstances,
provide evidence important for establishing the existence of a rule or the
emergence of an opinio juris. To establish whether this is true of a given
General Assembly resolution, it is necessary to look at its content and the
conditions of its adoption; it is also necessary to see whether an opinio juris
exists as to its normative character. Or a series of resolutions may show the
gradual evolution of the opinio juris required for the establishment of a new
rule.
71. Examined in their totality, the General Assembly resolutions put before
the Court declare that the use of nuclear weapons would be "a direct
violation of the Charter of the United Nations"; and in certain
formulations that such use "should be prohibited". The focus of these
resolutions has sometimes shifted to diverse related matters; however, several
of the resolutions under consideration in the present case have been adopted
with substantial numbers of negative votes and abstentions; thus, although those
resolutions are a clear sign of deep concern regarding the problem of nuclear
weapons, they still fall short of establishing the existence of an opinio juris
on the illegality of the use of such weapons.
72. The Court further notes that the first of the resolutions of the General
Assembly expressly proclaiming the illegality of the use of nuclear weapons,
resolution 1653 (XVI) of 24 November 1961 (mentioned in subsequent resolutions),
after referring to certain international declarations and binding agreements,
from the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868 to the Geneva Protocol of 1925,
proceeded to qualify the legal nature of nuclear weapons, determine their
effects, and apply general rules of customary international law to nuclear
weapons in particular. That application by the General Assembly of general rules
of customary law to the particular case of nuclear weapons indicates that, in
its view, there was no specific rule of customary law which prohibited the use
of nuclear weapons; if such a rule had existed, the General Assembly could
simply have referred to it and would not have needed to undertake such an
exercise of legal qualification.
73. Having said this, the Court points out that the adoption each year by
the General Assembly, by a large majority, of resolutions recalling the content
of resolution 1653 (XVI), and requesting the member States to conclude a
convention prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance, reveals
the desire of a very large section of the international community to take, by a
specific and express prohibition of the use of nuclear weapons, a significant
step forward along the road to complete nuclear disarmament. The emergence, as
lex lata, of a customary rule specifically prohibiting the use of
nuclear weapons as such is hampered by the continuing tensions between the
nascent opinio juris on the one hand, and the still strong adherence to
the practice of deterrence on the other.
[pp. 319-320 D.O. Schwebel] The General Assembly has no authority to enact international law. None of the General Assembly's resolutions on nuclear weapons are declaratory of existing international law. The General Assembly can adopt resolutions declaratory of international law only if those resolutions truly reflect what international law is. If a resolution purports to be declaratory of international law, if it is adopted unanimously (or virtually so, qualitatively as well as quantitatively) or by consensus, and if it corresponds to State practice, it may be declaratory of international law. The resolutions of which resolution 1653 is the exemplar conspicuously fail to meet these criteria. While purporting to be declaratory of international law (yet calling for consultations about the possibility of concluding a treaty prohibition of what is so declared), they not only do not reflect State practice, they are in conflict with it, as shown above. Forty-six States voted against or abstained upon the resolution, including the majority of the nuclear Powers. It is wholly unconvincing to argue that a majority of the Members of the General Assembly can "declare" international law in opposition to such a body of State practice and over the opposition of such a body of States. Nor are these resolutions authentic interpretations of principles or provisions of the United Nations Charter. The Charter contains not a word about particular weapons, about nuclear weapons, about jus in bello. To declare the use of nuclear weapons a violation of the Charter is an innovative interpretation of it ' which cannot be treated as an authentic interpretation of Charter principles or provisions giving rise to obligations binding on States under international law. Finally, the repetition of resolutions of the General Assembly in this vein, far from giving rise, in the words of the Court, to "the nascent opinio juris", rather demonstrates what the law is not. When faced with continuing and significant opposition, the repetition of General Assembly resolutions is a mark of ineffectuality in law formation as it is in practical effect.