The Judicial Dialogue between the ICJ and International Criminal Courts on the Question of Immunity

Abstract

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) could insist on its own position and still be seen to pay heed to the competence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to decide questions of international humanitarian law and international criminal law. This chapter sets out to assess to what extent the jurisprudence of the ICJ and the international criminal courts on immunity questions is coherent and to what extent it reflects crossfertilization. It purports to put the jurisprudence on this question in the broader perspective of the relationship between the ICJ and international criminal courts. The chapter describes and analyses the level of cross-referencing, cross-fertilization and coherence between the approach of the ICJ and that of the international criminal courts to the question of immunity for international crimes. It discusses the influence of the Arrest-Warrant case on the post-2002 jurisprudence of international criminal courts. Keywords:ICTY; immunity; International Court of Justice (ICJ); international criminal courts