SOURCE:

Faculty: Law
Department: Law

CONTRIBUTORS:

Alisigwe, H. C.
Nwakoby, G. C.
Okeke, G. N.

ABSTRACT:

International relations since the mid-twentieth century have undergone some deepening and intensification. The worldwide ascendancy of the rights of the individual have made the veneration of these rights a subject of International Law Consequently, International Law has striven to engender resort to law and the adjudicatory process to settle disputes that are incidental to inter-state intercourse, as well as holding accountable, violators of the rights reposed in the individual as a subject of contemporary International Law. This is underscored by the exhortation in Article 33 of the U.N. Charter on the required means of inter-state dispute resolution. This research therefore discussed the adjudicatory processes of inter-state dispute resolution and the supra-national judicial institutions that play pivotal roles in the arduous task of engendering a more peaceful world, to wit: the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the European Court of Justice (ECJ),the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the African Union Court of Justice and Human and Peoples Rights (ACJHPR) and the last but by no means the least, the ECOWAS Court of Justice. The prospects and challenges dogging these institutions were highlighted and x-rayed as we believe appreciation of these, hold the key to the spread of pacifism in inter-state dispute resolution through the judicial route. The methodology adopted in this research work is the doctrinal approach. Consequently, the resource materials consist of textbooks, journals, International Treaties, Local Statutes, judicial decisions and internet materials. The research finds that the adjudicatory procedure which underlines the concept of judicialism has gained more cognition and veneration among actors of the international system, given the plethora of international judicial institutions in existence that one can conveniently say that the practice of pacific settlement of international disputes is an ergo ommes obligation. It was also found out that the concept of judicialism is gradually being used to erode certain concept of International Law like sovereign immunity in favour of the individual who constitutes the main reason for the existence of the state. This shift as encapsulated by such judicial institutions like the ICC, ECJ, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the AU Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights and the ECOWAS Court of Justice signposts the culmination of efforts at entrenching the culture of humanism even in the face of warfare or armed conflict. These in turn also help preserve the human rights of the individual thereby limiting the culture of impunity among state institutions and leaders. It is the belief that whilst judicialism alone given the power play of inter-state relations may not totally entrench an unrestrained aptitude for law and adjudicatory process at International Law, this work would have by the discourse herein aided in extending the frontiers of a peaceful world founded upon respect for International Law and the adjudicatory process.