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Prosper Weil, The Court Cannot Conclude Definitively . . . Non Liquet Revisited, 36
COLUM. J. Transnat'l L. 109 (1998).

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Prosper Weil, The Court Cannot Conclude Definitively . . . Non Liquet Revisited, 36
Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 109 (1998).

APA 7th ed.

Weil, P. (1998). The court cannot conclude definitively . non liquet revisited.
Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 36(Issues 1&2), 109-119.

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Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 36, no. Issues 1&2 (1998): 109-119

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(1998) 36:Issues 1&2 Colum J Transnat'l L 109.

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(1998) 36(Issues 1&2) Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 109

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Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, vol. 36, no. Issues 1&2, 1998, pp. 109-119.
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 "The Court Cannot Conclude
Definitively..."
Non Liquet Revisited

PROSPER WEIL*

The General Assembly of the United Nations requested that the

International Court of Justice (I.C.J.) give an advisory opinion on the
legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.' In its advisory opinion
of July 8, 1996, the Court wrote that there is in customary or conven-
tional international law neither:
any specific authorization... [nor] any comprehensive and
universal prohibition of the threat or use of nuclear weapons
as such .... [T]he threat or use of nuclear weapons would
generally be contrary to the rules of international law... and
in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law..
. However, in view of the current state of international law,
and of the elements at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude
definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons
would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of
self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be
at stake .... 2
No doubt this conclusion not to conclude will be criticized by
scholars, as it has been by members of the Court. No lawyer would
readily accept the idea that on whatever matter-and even more so on
a matter of such an importance-international law has nothing to say,
and the I.C.J. nothing to conclude. Does the specter of non liquet not
spell disaster for the future of both international law and the judicial
function? This part of the Court's opinion will certainly revive the
classical debate on the problem of the gaps in international law and of
non liquet in international adjudication.
Leaving aside the question whether, on the specific issue of the
legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, the non liquet reached

* Emeritus, Universitd de Droit d'Economie et de Sciences Sociales de Paris. Copyright

© Prosper Weil, 1997.
1. The question was as follows: "Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any cir-
cumstance permitted under international law?" G.A. Res. 4975, U.N. GAOR, 49th Sess., U.N.
Doc. A/49/75 (1995).
2. Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Adv. Op.), 1996 I.C.J. 35, 105
(July 8), reprintedin 35 I.L.M. 809, 831 (1996).
 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW [36:109

by the Court is justified or whether an outright answer would have been

possible, this essay will focus on the concept of non liquet in itself.
This essay-written in honor of one of the great scholars of our
time-is about non liquet, not about the legality of nuclear weapons.

The allergy of international tribunals, in particular the I.C.J., and

scholars alike to non liquet is a well-known phenomenon. The view
prevailing among writers is that there is no room for non liquet in
international adjudication because there are no lacunae in international
law. According to this view, the absence of non liquet in international
adjudication is a consequence of the completeness of the international
legal system. Since a non liquet is a corollary and an expression of a
gap, or lacuna, in the law, the theories of lacunae in international law
and of non liquet are two sides of the same coin.
As I have tried to show elsewhere, there are in this respect two
rather different approaches One of these approaches, while not
denying the possibility of gaps in the law, maintains that the system has
built-in mechanisms to fill these gaps automatically. In the other
approach, no lacuna is possible because the system is logically
complete.
In the first approach, even though the system may at times produce
symptoms of illness, it is self-curative. There is a medicine for
whatever gaps are discovered. Such gaps are doomed to wane, and even
to disappear, at the very moment they come to light. This medicine has
a simple name: "the development of law." Developing the existing law
does not amount to exercising a legislative function. Developing the
law is inherent in the judicial function.
International law develops in various ways, some of which are
common to all legal orders. The interpretationof an existing rule, or the
concretization of an abstract and general standard (e.g., due process of
law) by way of its application to a particular situation, is the daily
activity of all judges around the world-municipal as well as interna-
tional. There exist, however, two self-curative methods specific to the
international legal system. These are recourse to general principles of
law and recourse to equity. Due to these two doctrines, so the prevail-
ing view goes, no gap is able to survive.

3. See Prosper Weil, Le droit internationalen qu~te de son identiti, Coursgdniral de

droitinternationalpublic,237 REcuELr. DE CouRs [REc. DES CouRs] 207,207-12 (1992-VI).
1997] THE COURT CANNOT CONCLUDEDEFINITIVELY

True, the concept of general principles of law, so highly cherished

by scholars, is referred to as such by the International Court of Justice
only in very few instances, if any. The idea, however, is there. Thus,
in the BarcelonaTractioncase, the Court declared that "whenever legal
issues arise concerning the rights of states with regard to the treatment
of companies and shareholders, as to which rights international law has
not established its own rules, it has to refer to relevant rules of munici-
pal law."4 In his separate opinion, Judge Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice
stressed that "[i]nternational law must... be regarded as deficient and
underdeveloped in this field."5 In other words, a lacuna in the law was
discovered, but the Court filled it immediately through recourse to what
it did not call, but indeed was, a general principle of law. Beyond
general principles of law in the technical sense of article 38 of the
Statute of the Court (i.e., the principles common to all legal, and in
particular municipal, legal systems),6 or the recourse to a "principle," a
"well-established principle", or a "well-known principle" is a method
by which the Court develops the law under the guise of applying already
existing rules. Thus, the Permanent Court of International Justice
(P.C.I.J.) wrote in an earlier case: "It is a principle of international law
that the breach of an engagement involves an obligation to make
reparation in an adequate form."7 This principle, in fact, owed its
existence to the Court's own dictum but was presented as preexisting.
In stating such principles, the Court more often than not fills a gap
without acknowledging it. Consequently, at all times the system is
indeed complete.
Equity is another useful, and perhaps even more productive,
method of ensuring the defacto completeness of the law. A number of
special agreements either have provided for the application of equity by
the arbitral tribunal if there turns out to be a gap in the law, or they have
been construed by the tribunal to permit such resort to equity.8 In the
North Sea ContinentalShelf cases, the I.C.J. itself resorted to what it
called "the rule of equity" in order to fill a gap in the law. The Court
wrote that the absence of any known conventional or customary rule

4. Case Concerning the Barcelona Traction, Light & Power Co. (Beig. v. Spain), 1970
I.C.J. 4, 33-34 (Feb. 5).
5. Id. at 78.
6. See Statute of the International Court of Justice, signedJune 26, 1945, 59 Stat. 1055,
33 U.N.T.S. 993.
7. Chorz6w Factory Case (F.R.G. v. Pol.), 1927 P.C.I.J. (ser. A) No. 12, at 21 (Nov. 21).
8. See also Norwegian Shipowners' Claims (Norway v. U.S.), 1 R.I.A.A. 307, 330
(Penn. Ct. Arb. 1922); Trial Smelter, (U.S. v. Can.), 3 R.I.A.A. 1905, 1908 (Trial Smelter Arb.
1938); Cayuga Indians, (Gr. Brit. v. U.S.), 6 R.I.A.A. 171, 180 (Perm. Ct. Arb. 1925).
 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW [36:109

governing the delimitation of the continental shelf between states not

bound by the 1958 Convention on the Continental Shelf' does not
amount to an absence of rule, that is to say, a lacuna in the law: "there
are still rules or principles of law to be applied; and... it is not the fact
either that rules are lacking, or that the situation is one for unfettered
appreciation of the Parties."1 The deficiency that had appeared in the
law governing the delimitation of the continental shelf immediately
disappeared thanks to recourse to the "rule of equity."
General principles of law and equity, therefore, are in the nature of
reserves to be sent to the front if need be. Far from negating the
possibility of lacunae, the very fact of their use attests to the existence
of lacunae. Once a lacunae is identified, it is neutralized ipso facto.
This neutralization, however, does not occur automatically in the
international legal system; rather, it occurs only when the lacuna comes
to light judicially. Pending judicial determination, the deficiency
persists. Once the judicial machinery is put to work, it disappears.
In the second approach, there simply is no such thing as a gap in
the law. The completeness of the system does not only exist defacto
but dejure. Gaps are regarded as logically impossible because of the
very structure of the system. The starting point of this theory is the
fundamental basis of the international legal system: the sovereignty of
states. International law exists only to limit the states' inherent freedom
of action. States, thus, are obliged to act only insofar as there exists a
prescriptive rule, and they are obliged not to act only if there exists a
prohibitive rule. Without any prescriptive or prohibitive rule, states
may act as they want, unfettered by law.
In other words, whatever is not explicitly prohibited by interna-
tional law is permitted. This is, in a nutshell, the doctrine of the
celebratedLotus judgment of the P.C.I.J. Confronted with the question
of whether Turkey was legally allowed to prosecute a French citizen for
an act on the high seas, the Court stated: "The rules of law binding upon
States ... emanate from their own will .... Restrictions upon the
independence of States cannot therefore be presumed."'" International
law, the Court declared, leaves to states "a wide measure of discretion
which is limited only in certain cases by prohibitive rules .... [Without
prohibitive rules,] every State remains free to adopt the principles which

9. Convention on the Continental Shelf, openedfor signature Apr. 29, 1958, 15 U.S.T.
471, 499 U.N.T.S. 311; North Sea Continental Shelf, (F.R.G. v. Den.; F.R.G. v. Neth.), 1969
I.C.J. 3 (Feb. 20).
10. North Sea Continental Shelf Cases, 1969 I.C.J. 3 at 46.
11. S.S. Lotus (Fr. v. Turk.), 1927 P.C.I.J., (ser. A), No. 10, at 18-19 (Sept. 7).
1997] THE COURT CANNOT CONCLUDEDEFINITIVELY

it regards as best and most suitable."' 2 The logical and inherent absence
of any lacuna in the law is, therefore, linked to the consensualist and
voluntarist conception of international law. States are bound by a rule
of law only because, and to the extent that, they have consented to it.
Freedom to act remains the basic principle. Only if, and to the extent
that, states have consented to an obligation to refrain from acting are
they under the obligation not to act; without a prohibitive rule, the
freedom to act remains unlimited.
As is well known, the Lotus philosophy raised in the 1930s a
doctrinal storm of the first magnitude. While some lawyers appreciated
its realism, the majority of writers viewed this theory as presenting a
lethal danger to the future of international law. State jurisdiction, so
some of the greatest names in international law argued, is not the source
but the product of international law. State sovereignty is not limited by
international law but rather is conferred by it. Without authorization by
international law, they said, no power, jurisdiction, or competence of the
state exists. While the Lotus philosophy allows states to act as long as
there is no "red light," these writers suggested that a state is free to act
only insofar as there is a rule granting it a "green light." These scholars
certainly were well aware that states do not consider their jurisdiction
and power to have been conferred by international law but rather view
international law as imposing limits upon their jurisdiction and power.
What these scholars sought by propounding such an "unrealistic"
doctrine was to "tame" state sovereignty and to subject states to the rule
of law.
Whatever the respective intrinsic merits ofthe Lotus and anti-Lotus
theories may be, the fact is that on several occasions the Court tipped
the balance in favor of the Lotus approach. In the absence of any
prescriptive or prohibitive rule, the Court seemed to argue, there exists
a permissive rule. Since logically there always exists a rule, a lacuna in
the law is simply inconceivable.
Thus, in the Haya de la Torre case, the I.C.J. found that the
controlling Convention did not "give a complete answer" to the question
of how the asylum should be terminated. "This silence cannot be
interpreted as imposing an obligationto surrender the refugee [but rather
left] the adjustment of the consequences of this situation to decisions
inspired by considerations of convenience or of simple political
expediency."' 3 In other words, the lacuna in the governing convention

12. Id.
13. Haya de laTorre (Colom. v. Peru), 1951 I.C.J. 71, 80-81 (June 13).
 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW [36:109

as to the method of terminating an asylum amounted, in the Court's

analysis, to a rule allowing the parties to act as they may choose.
More recently, in the Nicaraguacase, the Court took this approach
quite explicitly when it stated that, "in international law there are no
rules, other than rules as may be accepted by the State concerned, by
treaty or otherwise, whereby the level of armaments of a sovereign State
can be limited. .14

The question thus arises why tribunals and scholars feel such
intense loathing for both lacunae in the law and non liquet. Is it because
genuine gaps are either automatically cured or really do not exist that
there is no non liquet? The truth is probably the other way around. It
is because judges and lawyers do not like non liquet that they resort to
the devices of general principles of law or equity and the reasoning of
Lotus, all of which are more or less in the nature of a legal artifice.
And thus, the questionbecomes: why do judges and lawyers abhor
non liquet? There are various reasons for this attitude. Lawyers are
quite understandablyreluctant to admit that their discipline is imperfect.
Judges, especially, are reluctant to find that they have no solution to the
problem before them. The more scholarly reason usually put forward
is the social need for the settlement of disputes-the same basis for the
principle of resjudicata: ut sitfinis litium. This goal is not unique to
intemational adjudication. In many municipal systems an express law
or a principle provides that no tribunal may invoke the silence,
obscurity, or insufficiency of the law as a ground for not deciding the
case before it.
There is one further reason specific to the international legal order
for denying to international tribunals the right, or even the possibility,
of non liquet. This is the principle of the freedom of states to choose the
means of settlement of international disputes, and its corollary, the
"general principle of consensual jurisdiction."' 5 Judicial settlement is
only one of the means of settlement of international disputes, and it is
resorted to only if, and to the extent that, the parties voluntarily choose
to settle their disputes judicially in accordance with international law.

14. Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicar. v. U.S.), 1986
I.C.J. 14, 135 (June 27).
15. Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Sal. v. Hond.), 1990 I.C.J. 92 (Sept.
1997] THE COURT CANNOT CONCLUDEDEFINITIVELY

This is why the I.C.J. (or any other international tribunal) has jurisdic-
tion only if, and to the extent that, the parties have conferred jurisdiction
upon it. In most cases the issue of jurisdiction is approached in a
negative sense, that is to say, with a view to ascertaining that the parties
actually have consented to the judicial settlement of their dispute and to
the jurisdiction of the specific tribunal before which the dispute is
brought. The tribunal must be certain that it is not overstepping its
jurisdiction. There is, however, more to jurisdiction than the focus on
these limitations. Jurisdiction is not only a right-it imposes on the
tribunal the duty to exercise the authority the parties have granted to it.
Thus, confronted with the question of the validity of an arbitral award,
the I.C.J. has declared that it has to ascertain "whether by rendering the
disputed Award the Tribunal acted in manifest breach of the competence
conferred on it by the Arbitration Agreement, either by deciding in
excess of, or by failing to exercise, its jurisdiction."' 6 From this it
follows that in international adjudication avoidance of non liquet is not
only a matter of social necessity (a consideration also present in
domestic systems), but it is also an integral part of the consent-based,
rather than institutionally-imposed, character of the judicial settlement
of international disputes.
This means that whenever states decide, by way of a special
agreement, a compromissory clause, or otherwise, to ask for the judicial
settlement of a dispute, they impose on the judge or arbitrator an
obligation to settle the dispute. Therefore, ipsojure they confer on the
tribunal the normative and quasi-legislativepower necessary to produce
that result. To state the law-jurisdictio-is only one aspect, amongst
others, of the settlement of international disputes. It is not in itself the
goal of judicial settlement; rather, it is a by-product ofjudicial settle-
ment. This is precisely what article 38 of the Statute of the Court means
when it declares that "the function [of the I.C.J. is] to decide in
accordance with international law such disputes as are submitted to it."' 7
That is the true reason why non liquet has become absent from
international adjudication. It is not primarily because it points to the
incompleteness of international law or disregards the social function of
dispute settlement. Rather, it is because non liquet frustrates the will of
the parties to have their disputes settled judicially rather than by some
other means available in the system. In international adjudication,
avoidance of non liquet is an aspect of jurisdiction. The principle of

16. Arbitral Award of 31 July 1989 (Guinea-Bissau v. Sen.), 1991 I.C.J. 53, 69 (Nov. 12).
17. Statute of the International Court of Justice, signedJune 26, 1945, 59 Stat. 1055, 33
U.N.T.S. 993.
 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW [36:109

freedom to choose the means of settlement of international disputes, as

well as the prominence given by the parties in a specific case to judicial
settlement, would be defeated if an international tribunal were to
pronounce a non liquet when it cannot find in the law a solution to the
problem before it.

A quite different situation is presented when the I.C.J. is called

upon to give an advisory opinion on a "legal question." No doubt the
Court is "bound, in the exercise of its advisory function, to remain
faithful to the requirements of its judicial character."18 There exists
some common ground between the contentious and the advisory
jurisdiction functions of the Court, both being in the nature of ajudicial
function. In both contentious and advisory proceedings, the basic
principle is the same: "the Court cannot legislate," and the judicial
function does not include or imply "a law-making capacity." 9 The
"normal judicial function," the Court explains, consists of "ascertaining
the existence... of legal principles and rules applicable.... This is so
even if, in stating and applying the law, the Court necessarily has to
specify its scope and sometimes note its general trend."2
There is, nevertheless, a decisive difference between these two
aspects of the judicial function of the I.C.J. In contentious proceedings,
the Court's mission is based on the consent of the states parties to a
dispute and on their will to have the dispute settled judicially. In
advisory proceedings, on the other hand, the Court's mission is based
on the request of an organ of the United Nations. Consequently,
it is necessary to distinguish between requirements governing
contentious proceedings and those applicable to advisory
opinions. The purpose of the advisory function is not to
settle-at least directly--disputesbetween States, but to offer
legal advice to the organs and institutions requesting the
opinion.2

18. Constitution of the Maritime Safety Committee of the International Maritime

Consultative Organization (Adv. Op.), 1960 I.C.J. 150, 153 (June 8).
19. Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Adv. Op.), 1996 I.C.J. 35, 18,
reprintedin 35 I.L.M. 809, 831 (1996).
20. Id.
21. Id. T15.
1997] THE COURT CANNOT CONCLUDEDEFINITIVELY

In contentious proceedings, the Court is bound to settle the dispute

even if it does not find in the law any rule directly applicable; its
jurisdiction includes the duty to resolve the dispute, even if it does so at
the cost of a rather liberal approach to the "development"of the law. In
advisory proceedings, on the other hand, the Court's duty is not owed
to the parties to a dispute but to the organ or institution that has
requested its opinion. Its responsibilities lie in its participation in the
activities of the Organization; hence, "it should not, in principle, refuse
to give an advisory opinion."22 The duty to answer a request for an
advisory opinion, however, does not imply the duty to resolve the
question referred to it. An appropriate answer may be that at the present
stage of the evolution of the law there is no answer to the question, or
no complete answer. As the Court has written, once it has determined
that it could and should give the requested opinion, an "entirely
different question" arises. That question is whether it "will be able to
give a complete answer to the question asked of it .... [T]hat is a
different matter from a refusal to answer at all."23
The I.C.J. certainly is not prohibited from "developing" the law in
advisory proceedings. This is hardly uncommon. Indeed, some of the
most conspicuous examples of progressive development of international
law may be found in advisory opinions. But the Court may also choose
to limit itself in advisory opinions to stating the law as it is, with its
prescriptive, prohibitive, or permissive rules, but also with its gaps and
incompleteness. In contentious proceedings, non liquet may well be a
scandal. In advisory proceedings, it is not.
Right or wrong, non liquet was the Court's main answer in its
advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear
Weapons. The Court could have drawn on the Lotus case doctrine to fill
the gap and to decide that because of the absence of a prohibitive rule
states have, ipsojure,freedom of action; in other words, that an implied
permissive rule exists in regard to the question. It did not, even though
it observed that "State practice shows that the illegality of the use of
certain weapons as such does not result from an absence of authoriza-
tion but, on the contrary, is formulated in terms of prohibition."24 It
preferred to take note of what it called "the continuing difference of
views with regard to the legal status"2' of nuclear weapons; and in order

22. Id. 14.

23. Id. 19.
24. Id. 52.
25. Id. 98.
 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW [3:
[36:109

"to put an end to this state of affairs" 26-- that is to say, to what it
perceived as an incompleteness of the law-it referred any new
development in the law to negotiations. Was the Court acting appropri-
ately when it found that the law was unsettled and when it failed to draw
on the Lotus case doctrine? On this issue the views of the judges
differed widely, 27 as will the views of writers and governments. This,
nevertheless, is not the question addressed here.
The conclusion that there is nothing inherently unacceptable in an
advisory opinion non liquet, however, does not end the matter. To state
that on a certain issue the law has no answer, or has no answer yet,
leaves open the question of the practical consequences of such an
answer: how are governments supposed to act in light of an opinion by
the Court that there is no rule of law on a specific matter?
The answer to this question lies in one of the most fundamental
aspects of the international legal system: its inherent polynormativity."
Regardless of the judicial and scholarly endeavors to affirm the
completeness of international law, the truth of the matter is that
international law is not complete. No legal order is, because there is
not, cannot be, and should not be a rule at hand for every concrete or
new situation. As noted above, even the most developed municipal
systems are rich in abstract and general standards that call for judicial
interpretation and concretization. To a certain extent every legal system
is "open-textured." This "fuzziness" of the law, however, is by far more
pronounced in the international legal system. Compared to domestic
legal systems, a relatively greater number of matters will, at all times,
not be definitively addressed by international law because of the
absence of a central legislative authority, the generally slow norm-
creating process, whether conventional or customary, and the greater
predominance of political over legal factors in the international legal
system. More than municipal law, international law is by its very nature
riddled with gaps. To take just one example, when in the 1950s the
International Law Commission addressed the rules governing the
delimitation of the continental shelf, no law could be found and it was
suggested that possible disputes should be settled by arbitration ex

26. Id.
27. On the crucial paragraph E of the dispositif(quoted above), the vote was seven to
seven, including the vote cast by the President of the Court. Even among the judges who voted
in favor of this paragraph, the views differed on the validity of the Lotus principle, on the exact
state of the law and on the scope and meaning of the paragraph.
28. See Weil, supranote 3, at 220.
1997] THE COURT CANNOT CONCLUDEDEFINITIVELY

aequo et bono. Even after much study, the Commission's product was
far from definitive.29
As long as no clear rule has emerged from the norm-creating
process, there is simply no legal truth. One state may interpret the law
one way and another state may interpret it in another way. The question
of the law is, then, not one of"to be or not to be." Rather, it may well
be and not be at the same time--"be" in the eyes of one state, "not be"
(or "be" differently) in the eyes of another. The law is not a matter of
existence only, but also a matter of interpretation. International law as
understood by one country is not necessarily the same as that under-
stood by another country. From this flows the principle of self-
interpretation and self-appreciation, according to which "each State
establishes for itself its legal situation vis-A-vis other States."3 The
fabric of international law is, therefore, made not only of clear-cut
prescriptive, prohibitive, and permissive rules, but also of conflicting
views as to the contents of the law as well as the rights and obligations
flowing from it. This is the essence of international disputes. Pending
a possible third-party adjudication of a dispute, there is no finality or
legal "truth," or implied last word. Disputes about the existence and
scope of rules are part and parcel of the international legal system. They
are inherent in the system, and that is unlikely to change.
It thus appears that there is more to non liquet than non liquet. In
contentious proceedings, non liquet is eclipsed by the principle of
consensual jurisdiction and the necessity to abide by the will of the
parties to resort to the judicial settlement of their dispute. That is why
the tribunal is obliged in contentious proceedings to avoid finding
lacunae in the law and therefore to deny non liquet. In advisory
proceedings, non liquet is an expression of the principles of self-
interpretation and polynormativity that are characteristic of the
international legal system. Therefore, when in response to a request for
an advisory opinion, the I.C.J. concludes "that it cannot conclude," such
a response appropriately may reflect the state of the law and the specific
role the Court plays in such matters. Whether the Court should respond
in that way to a specific request is, of course, quite another question.

29. See Statement ofMr. Lauterpacht, I Y.B. INT'L L. COMM'N 194 (1952); Report of the
InternationalLaw Commission to the GeneralAssembly Covering Work ofits Eighth Session,
2 Y.B. INT'L L. COMM'N 253, U.N. Doe. A/3159 (1956); North Sea Continental Shelf (F.R.G.
v. Neth.), 1969 I.C.J. 3, 27-41, 34-70 (Feb. 20).
30. The Air Services Agreement of 27 March 1946 (U.S. v. Fr.), 18 R.I.A.A. 417, 54
I.L.tR 304 (Dec. 9, 1978); See also Lac Lanoux (Spain v. Fr.), 12 R.I.A.A. 281, 310 (Nov. 16,
1957).