Congo v Uganda

DRC to find that Uganda , by its massive use of force against the Applicant has committed an act of aggression

Additionally , both Judge Simma and Judge Koojimans agree that the Court missed the opportunity to clarify an aspect of law which is shaded by confusion and controversy : use of force and self-defence . Since DRC was not responsible for the armed activity against Uganda , Uganda 's claim that it was acting in self-defence was not upheld . But , as Judge Koojiman said in his separate opinion "It would be unreasonable to deny the attacked

State the right to self-defence merely because there is no attacker State and the Charter does not so require so

Judge Simma concluded his opinion on this particular by saying that it would have been more appropriate had the Court dealt with this issue of the use of armed force on a large scale by non-State actors instead of shying away from it , and this would not have affected its eventual result . But the "unnecessarily cautious " way in which this question was approached as well as the evasion of the issue of "aggression , the Court has conveyed a lack of comfort at being faced with questions which are extremely important in the arena of contemporary international relations

Impact and Conclusion

Kammerhofer (2007 ) believes that this was a landmark case and judgement both , as this is the first time in the ICJ 's History that it was found that state has violated the prohibition of the use of force as per Article 2 (4 "a direct violation of the single most important provision of this single most important treaty of international law " and for the first time , the Court discussed directly the applicable scope of self-defence , as laid down in Article 51 . However , similar to the point Judges Simma...