15 Advisory Jurisdiction

Abstract

The Court's jurisdiction to give advisory opinions, based on principles quite different from its contentious jurisdiction, is set out in Article 65, paragraph 1, of the Statute. The decision of the requesting organ to avail itself of Article 96 of the Charter and to adopt a request for an advisory opinion, itself a political decision, carries an implication that the requesting organ regards the question as a legal one, to which it desires a legal answer produced by application of the judicial techniques of the Court's advisory jurisdiction. The Court has also emphasized that since it can answer any legal question put to it by the General Assembly its determination, by the process of interpretation, that it was asked an abstract question does not lead to the conclusion that it may not answer the question.Keywords: advisory jurisdiction; General Assembly; international court