Provisional measures in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice

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The present article examines the use of provisional measures by the International Court of Justice for the entire period of its activity, as well as the jurisprudence of its predecessor – the Permanent Court of International Justice at the League of Nations. The author highlights the criteria elaborated and used by the International Court of Justice while deciding whether to order provisional measures in a particular case. Thus, the International Court of Justice has repeatedly indicated in orders that it may grant provisional measures under article 41 of the ICJ Statute subject to the following conditions: prima facie jurisdiction over the substance of the dispute; risk of irreparable harm to the rights of the applicant; urgency; a link between requested provisional measures and the rights for which the applicant seeks protection. Also, the author looks at an additional criterion – a plausibility test which appeared in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice in 2009. According to this test, the International Court of Justice when deciding whether to grant provisional measures only needs to determine that the rights for which the applicant seeks protection are at least plausible. The author examines the use of the plausibility test in the recent International Court of Justice order to grant provisional measures in the Gambia v. Myanmar case showing the difference between the plausibility test and a test of plausibility of rights and prima facie jurisdiction. In addition, the author analyzes the Court’s evolving approach to the binding force of its orders on the requests to indicate provisional measures. The analysis is significant due to the fact that the number of such requests has increased considerably due to the fact that the International Court of Justice has recognized (after a long period of silence on this issue) the binding force of its orders to grant provisional measures in the well-known LaGrand case in 2001, which was a remarkable achievement for the Court as well as for international judiciary in general. The author concludes that while demonstrating a significant restraint in dealing with requests to grant provisional measures, especially on proprio motu basis, the Court sometimes lacks a coherent and persuasive approach in implementing its criteria in particular cases.

About the author: Sofia Pimenova – Master of Laws, International Law Department, Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Pimenova S. (2020) Obespechitel'nye mery v praktike Mezhdunarodnogo Suda OON [Provisional measures in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, vol.10, no.2, pp.88–102.

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