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Factsa. Intervention by the Philippines is requested in relation to a case regarding

international law (between Indonesia and Malaysia), brought before aninternational Court, with the alleged concern on the part of the Philippines thatthe consequences of this particular case might affect its own legal interests

b. The Philippines initially filed a request on 22 February 2001 to be given copiesof the pleadings and documents of the case, but this request was foundinappropriate by the Court and denied

c. On March 13, 2001 the Philippines submitted an application to intervene in the

case, on the basis that the outcome of the case might have direct or indirectbearing on the matter of the legal status of North Borneo, the latter of which is ofthe property of the Philippines; yet this application not submitted until more thantwo years after the known beginning of the case

d. Both Indonesia and Malaysia together reject the claim to intervene, based on

issues of timeliness and appropriateness to the case

Sovereignty o ver Pulau Ligi tan and

Pulau Sipadan (Ind on esia/Malaysia)

App l icat ion by the Phi l ipp ines for

Perm ission to Intervene

I.C.J. Reports 2001

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Questions

a. Does the Court have jurisdiction to hear the case?b. Does the Philippines have the right, by Article 62 of the Statute, to intervene inthis

case concerning sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan?

Decisions

a. The Court ruled that although the Philippines met the timeliness requirementsinthatit submitted an application before it or the Court could have known the last written

proceedings had been completedand although the Court showed that as regardsarticle62, no jurisdictional link need be shown by the Philippines, yet the applicant did notshow convincingly enough that its legal interests are at stake in the case.

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Principles

a. The main principle here is that of jurisdiction. Every aspect of jurisdiction wastouched upon at some point and to some degree during the caseregardingtemporal, geographic, or subject matter

b. In general, a nations right to intervene according to the principles laid down

in article 62 of the Statute

Conclusion

The case really focuses in on article 62 of the Statute and how it is to be appliedtomatters of international law. Jurisdiction is shown to be in this situation, at times atricky and complicated subject to tackle. One also observes the subtleties withwhich the Court must interpret and apply rules in specific cases of international

law.

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The Court recalls that, under the terms of Article 62 ofthe Statute:"1. Should a State consider that it has an interest of a legal nature which maybe affected by the de:cision in the case, it may submit a request to the Court to

bepennitted to intervene.2. It shall be for the Court to decide upon this request."".intervention under Article 62 of the Statute is for the purpose of protecting a State's'interest of a legal nature that might be affected by a decision in an existing casealready established between other States, namely the parties to the case. It i:s not

intended to enable a third State to tack on a new case ... An incidental proceedingcimnot be one which transforms [a] case into a different case with different parties."

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North Sea Continental Shelf CaseICJ Reports 1969

FACTS:

The two Special Agreements had asked the Court to

declare the principles and rules of international law

applicable to the delimitation as between the Parties of

the areas of the North Sea continental shelf appertainingto each of them beyond the partial boundaries in the

immediate vicinity of the coast already determined

between the Federal Republic and the Netherlands by an

agreement of 1 December 1964 and between the FederalRepublic and Denmark by an agreement of 9 June

1965.The Court was not asked actually to delimit the

further boundaries involved, the Parties undertaking in

their respective Special Agreements to effect such

delimitation by agreement in pursuance of the Court's

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Denmark and the Netherlands argued that the method

of equidistance should be implemented. This is thateach State claimed all areas that are closer to itself

than any other state. They claimed that the Geneva

Convention supported this method. Moreover, it was

alleged to have been an a priori rule of law, a rule of

customary international law, and a general rule ofconventional practicality.

Germany, who had not ratified the Geneva Convention,

claimed that the rule of equidistance was unfair. TheState also argued for an apportionment of the shelf that

was proportional to the size of each states adjacent

land.

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Delimitationis a process which involves

establishing the boundaries of an area already,

in principle, appertaining to the coastal state

and not the determination de novo of such an

area.

Inherent right to territorythe rights of the

coastal State in respect of the continental shelf

that constitutes a natural prolongation of its

land territory into and under the sea exist ipsofacto and ab in i t io, by virtue of its sovereignty

over the land, and as an extension of it in an

exercise of soverign and exploiting its natural

resources.

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Consequently, where two such lines are drawnat different points on a concave coast, they will,if the curvature is pronounced, inevitably meet ata relatively short distance from the coast, thuscausing the continental shelf area they enclose,to take the form approximately of a triangle withits apex to seaward and, as it was put on behalfof the Federal Republic, 'cutting off' the

coastal State from the further areas of thecontinental shelf outside of and beyond this

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The court at the end advice negotiation as

the best way to solve the conflict.

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FILARTIGA CASE

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Filrtiga family contended that on March 29, 1976, their seventeen-year-old son JoelitoFilrtiga was kidnapped and tortured to death by Amrico Norberto Pea Irala. Allparties were living in Paraguay at the time, and Pea was the InspectorGeneral of Police in Asuncin, the capital of Paraguay. Later that same day, police

brought Dolly Filrtiga (Joelito's sister) to see the body, which evidenced marks ofsevere torture. The Filrtigas claimed that Joelito was tortured in retaliation for thepolitical activities and beliefs of his father Joel Filrtiga.

Filrtiga brought murder charges against Pea and the police in Paraguay, but the casewent nowhere. Subsequently, the Filrtigas' attorney was arrested, imprisoned, and

threatened with death. He was later allegedly disbarred without just cause.In 1978, Dolly Filrtiga and (separately) Amrico Pea came to the United States. Dollyapplied for political asylum, while Pea stayed under a visitor's visa. Dolly learned ofPea's presence in the United States and reported it to the Immigration andNaturalization Service, who arrested and deported Pea for staying well past theexpiration of his visa.

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When Pea was taken to the Brooklyn Navy Yard pending deportation, Filrtigalodged a civil complaint in U.S. courts, brought forth by the Center for ConstitutionalRights, for Joelito's wrongful death by torture, asking for damages in the amount of$10 million. After an initial district court dismissal citing precedents that limited the

function of international law to relations between states, on appeal, the circuit ruledthat freedom from torture was guaranteed under customary international law. "Thetorturer has becomelike the pirate and slave trader before himhostis humanigeneris, an enemy of all mankind", wrote the court.The appellants argued that Pea's actions had violated wrongful death statutes, theUnited Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American

Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and other customary international law.Petitioner claimed the U.S. courts had jurisdiction to hear the case under the AlienTort Statute, which grants district courts original jurisdiction to hear tort claimsbrought by an alien that have been "committed in violation of the law of nations or atreaty of the United States". This case interpreted that statute to grant jurisdictionover claims for torts committed both within the United States and abroad

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Torture, in turn, is defined as "any act by which severe pain and suffering, whetherphysical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a publicofficial on a person for such purposes as ... intimidating him or other persons." TheDeclaration goes on to provide that "(w)here it is proved that an act of torture orother cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment has been committedby or at the instigation of a public official, the victim shall be afforded redress and

compensation, in accordance with national law."

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As part of an articulated scheme of federal control over external affairs,Congress provided, in the first Judiciary Act, 9(b), 1 Stat. 73, 77 (1789), forfederal jurisdiction over suits by aliens where principles of international law arein issue. The constitutional basis for the Alien Tort Statute is the law of nations,

which has always been part of the federal common law.

The law of nations forms an integral part of the common law, and a review of thehistory surrounding the adoption of the Constitution demonstrates that it became

a part of the common law of the United States upon the adoption of theConstitution. Therefore, the enactment of the Alien Tort Statute was authorizedby Article III.

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in the absence of a congressional enactment, (20) United States courts are"bound by the law of nations, which is a part of the law of the land." Thesewords were echoed in The Paquete Habana, supra, 175 U.S. at 700, 20 S. Ct.at 299: "international law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and

administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often asquestions of right depending upon it are duly presented for theirdetermination."

We believe it is sufficient here to construe the Alien Tort Statute, not as grantingnew rights to aliens, but simply as opening the federal courts for adjudication of

the rights already recognized by international law.

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Congress intended to enable federal courts to hear claims in a very limitedcategory defined by the law of nations and recognized at common law.

Because Pena has now been deported, the federal defendants are no longerparties to this suit, and the claims against them are not before us on this appeal.

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