The Case Concerning the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America) (1986)http://www.worldlii.org/int/cases/ICJ/1986/1.html ICJ 1. was a case where the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Sandinistas and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The case was decided in favor of Nicaragua and against the United States with the awarding of reparations to Nicaragua.
The Court had 15 final decisions upon which it voted. The Court found in its verdict that the United States was "in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State", "not to intervene in its affairs", "not to violate its sovereignty", "not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce", and "in breach of its obligations under Article XIX of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed at Managua on 21 January 1956." In Statement 9, the Court stated that while the U.S. encouraged human rights violations by the Contras by the CIA-authored manual entitled Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare, this did not make such acts attributable to the U.S.
The United States refused to participate in the proceedings, arguing that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The U.S. also blocked enforcement of the judgment by the United Nations Security Council and thereby prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any compensation. "Appraisals of the ICJ's Decision. Nicaragua vs United States (Merits)." Nicaragua, under the later, post-FSLN government of Violeta Chamorro, withdrew the complaint from the court in September 1992 following a repeal of the law which had required the country to seek compensation.
Background and history of US intervention in Nicaragua The first armed intervention by the United States in Nicaragua occurred under President William Howard Taft. In 1909, he ordered the overthrow of Nicaraguan President José Santos Zelaya. During August and September 1912, a contingent of 2,300 U.S. Marines landed at the port of Corinto and occupied León and the railway line to Granada. A pro-U.S. government was formed under the occupation. The 1914 Bryan–Chamorro Treaty granted perpetual canal rights to the U.S. in Nicaragua and was signed ten days before the U.S.-operated Panama Canal opened for use, thus preventing anyone from building a competing canal in Nicaragua without U.S. permission.
In 1927, under Augusto César Sandino, a major peasant uprising was launched against both the U.S. occupation and the Nicaraguan establishment. In 1933, the Marines withdrew and left the Nicaraguan National Guard in charge of internal security and elections. In 1934, Anastasio Somoza García, the head of the National Guard, ordered his forces to capture and murder Sandino. In 1937, Somoza assumed the presidency, while still in control of the National Guard, and established a dictatorship that his family controlled until 1979.
The downfall of the regime is attributed to its embezzlement of millions of dollars in foreign aid that was given to the country in response to the devastating 1972 earthquake. Many moderate supporters of the dictatorship began abandoning it in the face of growing revolutionary sentiment. The Sandinista (FSLN) movement organized relief, began to expand its influence and assumed the leadership of the revolution. A popular uprising brought the FSLN to power in 1979. The United States had long been opposed to the socialist FSLN, and after the revolution the Carter administration moved quickly to support the Somocistas with financial and material aid. When Ronald Reagan took office, he augmented the direct support to an anti-Sandinista group, called the Contras, which included factions loyal to the former dictatorship. When Congress prohibited further funding to the Contras, Oliver North continued the funding through arms sales that were also prohibited by Congress.
Nicaragua's submissions Nicaragua charged:
(a) That the United States, in recruiting, training, arming, equipping, financing, supplying and otherwise encouraging, supporting, aiding, and directing military and paramilitary actions in and against Nicaragua, had violated its treaty obligations to Nicaragua under: Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter; Articles 18 and 20 of the Charter of the Organization of American States; Article 8 of the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States; Article I, Third, of the Convention concerning the Duties and Rights of States in the Event of Civil Strife.
(b) That the United States had breached customary international law by
1. violating the sovereignty of Nicaragua by: armed attacks against Nicaragua by air, land and sea; incursions into Nicaraguan territorial waters; aerial trespass into Nicaraguan airspace; efforts by direct and indirect means to coerce and intimidate the Government of Nicaragua. 2. using force and the threat of force against Nicaragua. 3. intervening in the internal affairs of Nicaragua. 4. infringing upon the freedom of the high seas and interrupting peaceful maritime commerce. 5. killing, wounding and kidnapping citizens of Nicaragua.
Nicaragua demanded that all such actions cease and that the United States had an obligation to pay reparations to the government for damage to their people, property, and economy.
It is noteworthy that the United States, the respondent party, was the only member that put forward arguments against the validity of the judgment of the court, arguing that it passed a decision that it "had neither the jurisdiction nor the competence to render." Members that sided with the United States in opposing Nicaragua's claims did not challenge the court's jurisdiction, its findings, nor the substantive merits of the case.
Judgment The lengthy judgment first listed 291 points, among them that the United States had been involved in the "unlawful use of force". The violations included attacks on Nicaraguan facilities and naval vessels, the mining of Nicaraguan ports, the invasion of Nicaraguan air space, and the training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying of forces (the "Contras") and seeking to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government. This was followed by the statements that the judges voted on.{broken link} Large PDF file from the ICJ website.
Findings The court found evidence of an arms flow between Nicaragua and insurgents in El Salvador between 1979 and 1981. However, there was not enough evidence to show that the Nicaraguan government was imputable for this or that the US response was proportional. The court also found that certain transborder incursions into the territory of Guatemala and Costa Rica, in 1982, 1983 and 1984, were imputable to the Government of Nicaragua. However, neither Guatemala nor Costa Rica had made any request for US intervention; El Salvador did in 1984, well after the US had intervened unilaterally.
"As regards El Salvador, the Court considers that in customary international law the provision of arms to the opposition in another State does not constitute an armed attack on that State. As regards Honduras and Costa Rica, the Court states that, in the absence of sufficient information as to the transborder incursions into the territory of those two States from Nicaragua, it is difficult to decide whether they amount, singly or collectively, to an armed attack by Nicaragua. The Court finds that neither these incursions nor the alleged supply of arms may be relied on as justifying the exercise of the right of collective self-defence."
Regarding human rights violations by the Contras, "The Court has to determine whether the relationship of the contras to the United States Government was such that it would be right to equate the Contras, for legal purposes, with an organ of the United States Government, or as acting on behalf of that Government. The Court considers that the evidence available to it is insufficient to demonstrate the total dependence of the Contras on United States aid. A partial dependency, the exact extent of which the Court cannot establish, may be inferred from the fact that the leaders were selected by the United States, and from other factors such as the organisation, training and equipping of the force, planning of operations, the choosing of targets and the operational support provided. There is no clear evidence that the United States actually exercised such a degree of control as to justify treating the contras as acting on its behalf... Having reached the above conclusion, the Court takes the view that the Contras remain responsible for their acts, in particular the alleged violations by them of humanitarian law. For the United States to be legally responsible, it would have to be proved that that State had effective control of the operations in the course of which the alleged violations were committed."
The Court concluded that the United States was subject to the Court's jurisdiction. The Court had ruled on November 26, 1984 by 11 votes to 1 that it had jurisdiction in the case on the basis of either Article 36 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice or the 1956 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the United States and Nicaragua. The Charter provides that it is for the Court itself to decide whether it has jurisdiction, and that each member of the United Nations undertakes to comply with the decision of the Court. The Court also ruled by unanimity that the present case was admissible. The United States then announced that it had "decided not to participate in further proceedings in this case." After the Court's jurisdictional decision, the United States withdrew its consent to the Court's compulsory jurisdiction, in part because Nicaragua had not accepted compulsory jurisdiction except for this case, and mostly because few nations ever had (and all who did accept compulsory jurisdiction did so with significant conditions and reservations). The Declaration of acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice terminated after a 6-month notice of termination delivered by the Secretary of State to the United Nations on October 7, 1985.
Although the Court called on the United States to "cease and to refrain" from the unlawful use of force against Nicaragua and stated that the US was "in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to use force against another state" and ordered it to pay reparations, the United States refused to comply. As a permanent member of the Security Council, the U.S. has been able to block any enforcement mechanism attempted by Nicaragua. On November 3, 1986 the United Nations General Assembly passed, by a vote of 94-3 (El Salvador, Israel and the US voted against), a non-binding resolution urging the US to comply.
The ruling On June 27, 1986, the Court made the following ruling:
The Court Decides that in adjudicating the dispute brought before it by the Application filed by the Republic of Nicaragua on 9 April 1984, the Court is required to apply the "multilateral treaty reservation" contained in proviso (c) to the declaration of acceptance of jurisdiction made under Article 36, paragraph 2, of the Statute of the Court by the Government of the United States of America deposited on 26 August 1946; Rejects the justification of collective self-defense maintained by the United States of America in connection with the military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua the subject of this case;