The 2001 Amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the International Court of Justice 1 Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 2002

1 Law & Prac. Int'l Cts. & Tribunals 155 (2002)
The 2001 Amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the International Court of Justice

handle is hein.journals/lpict1 and id is 163 raw text is: The Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 1: 155 187, 2002.
© 2002 Kluwer Law International. Printed in the Netherlands.
THE 2001 AMENDMENTS TO THE RULES OF PROCEDURE OF
THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
DIETMAR W. PRAGER
On 5 December 2000 the International Court of Justice amended Article 79
of the Rules of Court relating to preliminary objections and Article 80 of
the Rules of Court relating to counter-claims.' It also modified the text of a
note containing information and recommendations for parties to new cases,
which the Registrar has handed out to the representatives of those parties
at their first meeting.2 The amendments came into force on 1 February
2001 for all cases submitted on or after that date to the Court.
1. Amendments to Article 79 of the Rules of Court and to the
note containing recommendations to the Parties
1.1. Introduction
In the mid 1980s, the Court started to experience a notable increase in
cases. At the same time, it had to deal with severe budgetary constraints.
As a result, the Court began to accumulate a backlog of cases and the
overall duration of proceedings before the Court increased significantly.
These developments led the Court in the late 1990s to re-evaluate its
working methods, many of which date back to the days of the Permanent
Court of International Justice (PCIJ), in order to improve the Court's
efficiency and to expedite proceedings before the Court. The Court
1 See I.C.J. Press Release 200111 and the Registry's Background Note at
<http://www.icj-cij.org>. This is the first amendment of the Court's Rules since
1978. The Court adopted its original Rules on 6 May 1946 on the basis of the
Rules of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Court amended those
Rules on 10 May 1972. Less than six years later, on 14 April 1978, the Court
replaced those Rules with a newly amended version.
2 At the time of the January amendments, the note was called Note containing
Recommendations to the Parties. On 31 October 2001, the Court amended the
Note and reissued it as Note containing important information for parties to new
cases. See I.C.J. Press Release 2001/32. For the full text of the new Note, see S.
Rosenne, Updates to Law and Practice of the International Court of Justice
(1920-1996) in this volume.

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