Excursion to the International Court of Justice

On the 19th of November, SIB Amsterdam visited the International Court of Justice in The Hague. We received a warm welcome by the First Secretary of the Court and Head of the Information Department Mr Andrey Poskakukhinin in the ICJ building, the magnificent Peace Palace. He guided us into the ICJ court room which is also known as the Great Hall of Justice. It was a privilege to seat in the courtroom where entry is restricted to the parties of the case and the others have to seat in the balcony. Mr Poskakukhinin then gave us information of the court, its proceedings and selection of the judges. He also pointed out some important cases handled by ICJ. We discussed about how the United Nation’s Security Council has influence in selection process of judges to ICJ. It is important to note here that the ICJ has precedence over court of a state as long as the state constitution allows it. We thanked Mr. Poskakukhinin for this opportunity. On the way back home, we took an ad-hoc tour of the Dutch parliament. Here we discussed the Dutch political parties and their representation in the parliament. The balance between the King and elected representatives was also a point of discussion. It was a wonderful day!Abhijit Bhanudas Mahale,member of the CEA