What the Court said

INLAP/World Court Project UK

Read The full text of the IC] Opinion (Go to the second page; the first page is blank; note that every other page is in French) and Judge Weeramantry's Dissenting Opinion. You can also read an interesting commentary on this Opinion by an INLAP/World Court Project member here >

Summary of the World Court Opinion

In 8 July 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its findings on the question before it from the UN General Assembly (UNGA): " Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance permitted under international law?"

The main conclusions of the Court were that:

The threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally contrary to international humanitarian law. (para 105D) There are no international agreements banning them specifically as nuclear weapons. However, the Court confirmed unanimously that their threat or use, just like other weapons, must comply with international humanitarian law and be judged according to their effects and the circumstances of their use. (paras 86, 105, 2D). Weapons which could not distinguish between civilian and military targets, would be unlawful.

B.	To threaten anything illegal is itself illegal. (para 47). Possession and deployment of a weapon with the stated conditional intention to use it would constitute an illegal threat if the purpose of its use would inevitably violate the principles of necessity and proportionality. (para 48)

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About the Court and what it said

The ICJ is the court of the United Nations. It can give Advisory Opinions on questions from a UN agency, such as the General Assembly. The Court expects, but cannot force, compliance with its Opinions as they confirm what international law is with the highest authority. Advisory Opinions are only given after careful consideration by the Court's 15 judges. In the nuclear weapons case, 43 states, a record number (including all the Nuclear-Weapon States except China) made written statements and 22 made oral ones.

The 1996 Advisory Opinion provides invaluable guidance for the work of World Court Project. Besides the main 34 page Opinion, each of the judges wrote individual opinions. Judge Weeramantry's argued forcefully for the illegality of nuclear weapons. It links morality based on common human values to law and suggests that nuclear weapons rob morality and law of any meaning. Especially valuable are the sections "Two Philosophical Perspectives" starting on page 520 and "Elementary Considerations of Humanity" and "Multicultural Background to the Humanitarian Laws of War" starting on Page 477. In his Opinion Judge Weeramantry said:

One wonders whether ... it can be doubted that to exterminate vast numbers of the enemy population, to poison their atmosphere, to induce in them cancers, keloids and leukaemias, to cause congenital defects and mental retardation in large numbers of unborn children, to devastate their territory and render their food supply unfit for human consumption ... can conceivably be compatible with "elementary considerations of humanity".

.. The forces ranged against the view of illegality are truly colossal. However collisions with the colossal have not deterred the law on its upward course towards the concept of the rule of law. It has not flinched from the task of imposing constraints upon physical power when legal principle so demands. It has been by a determined stand against forces that seemed colossal or irresistible that the rule of law has been won.