Ebook: Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

The first three volumes of the World Court Digest cover the periods 1986 to 1990, 1991 to 1995 and 1996 to 2000. We are happy to issue the fourth volume, covering the period from 2001 to 2005. We hope that this new Digest will be welcome to all those interested in the case law of the International Court of Justice. We are, of course, aware that nowadays the decisions of the Court are easily accessible through electronic data systems. However, there is no systematic analysis available in the form presented by the World Court Digest. Therefore, the Digest will be useful for those who wish to find the most recent position of the Court on a particular issue of international law. As the three previous volumes, also this fourth volume will be made available through electronic data on the homepage of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. The first five years of the new century have been a busy period for the Court due to its continuing heavy caseload. The cases concerned a variety of legal issues reaching from the use of force and self-defence to questions of land and maritime boundary delimitation, immunity, consular matters, revision of judgments and the effect of provisional measures. The parties to the cases were States from all parts of the world demonstrating the general acceptance of the Court.

The World Court Digest continues the Fontes Iuris Gentium, a series that presents the decisions of the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Court of Justice up to 2000. The new volume covers the period from 2001 to 2005. All important pronouncements of the Court in its judgments and advisory opinions are systematically arranged under specific topics taken from substantive and procedural international law. The World Court Digest provides reliable access to the decisions of the most significant international judicial organ on questions as important as the right of self-defence, the use of force, i.e. in the Yugoslavian context, consular matters, questions of immunity, maritime and territorial delimitation, revision of judgments and the effect of provisional matters.