Public International Law Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The contiguous zone of India is dealt with in Section 5 of the Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone and Other Maritime Zones Act, 1976. It extends to twenty-four nautical miles from the nearest point of the baseline, and India may exercise control there to prevent infringement of customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws.

Section 6 is about the continental shelf, so it is not the contiguous zone provision, and Sections 11 and 25 of the Act deal with other matters. Section 5 is the one headed contiguous zone.

Answer: A

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was adopted in 1982, at the end of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, and opened for signature at Montego Bay, Jamaica in December that year. It came into force in 1994 after the sixtieth ratification.

1966 is the year the UN General Assembly set up UNCITRAL, a different body, while 1976 and 1986 are simply nearby years that do not match the adoption of the Convention. Only 1982 is correct.

Answer: C

India's territorial waters extend up to 12 nautical miles from the appropriate baseline, as declared under the Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone and Other Maritime Zones Act, 1976, which follows the limit in the law of the sea.

The contiguous zone goes to 24 nautical miles and the exclusive economic zone to 200 nautical miles, so those figures are for other zones, and 100 and 26 do not correspond to any maritime zone of India. The territorial limit is 12.

Answer: D

Neither conclusion follows. The statements say that UNCLOS was adopted in 1982 and that it provides the framework for further development of specific areas of the law of the sea.

Conclusion I is about a 2015 decision of the General Assembly to develop a new binding instrument on marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, and Conclusion II is about the date on which the International Maritime Organization convention came into force. Neither is stated or implied by the two statements, so the keyed answer is that neither follows.

Answer: B

The passage comes from the Asylum Case, 1950 (Colombia v Peru).

Colombia granted asylum in its Lima embassy to the Peruvian political leader Haya de la Torre and claimed a regional Latin American custom allowing it to decide unilaterally whether the offence was political. The ICJ held that the party relying on a regional or local custom must prove that it is established so as to bind the other party, and found that Colombia had not proved such a custom binding on Peru.

The Temple of Preah Vihear case concerned a boundary and acquiescence, the U.N. Administrative Tribunal opinion concerned compensation awards to staff, and the North Sea Continental Shelf cases are known for the elements of general custom (state practice and opinio juris), not regional custom.

Answer: A

This principle is known as the Blackstonian doctrine.

William Blackstone wrote that the law of nations is adopted in its full extent by the common law and held to be part of the law of the land. This doctrine of incorporation means customary international law applies in English courts automatically, without a statute, unless it conflicts with an Act of Parliament.

The Calvo Clause is a contractual waiver by which a foreign investor gives up the diplomatic protection of its own state. Jus cogens means peremptory norms from which no derogation is allowed, and pacta sunt servanda is the rule that treaties must be performed in good faith.

Answer: D

The observation was made in the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons advisory opinion, 1996.

Asked by the General Assembly whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons is permitted under international law, the Court examined whether a series of General Assembly resolutions condemning such weapons had created a rule of law. In that context it said that General Assembly resolutions, even if not binding, may sometimes have normative value and can provide evidence of a rule or of an emerging opinio juris, though it found that these particular resolutions fell short of establishing one.

The Corfu Channel case concerned mines and state responsibility, the South-West Africa opinion the mandate system, and Libya v. Malta the continental shelf.

Answer: C

The incorrect statement is that each state may not have the right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems.

The 1970 Friendly Relations Declaration lists the elements of sovereign equality: states are juridically equal; each enjoys the rights inherent in full sovereignty; each must respect the personality of other states; territorial integrity and political independence are inviolable; each has the right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems; and each must comply fully and in good faith with its international obligations and live in peace with other states.

The option saying a state 'may not have' that right inverts the Declaration. The other three restate its text (the paper's 'interested' is a misprint for 'inherent').

Answer: B

The view is Vattel's.

Emmerich de Vattel, in Le Droit des gens (1758), described the 'necessary law of nations' as the law of nature applied to nations, and said that nations are absolutely bound to observe it. He combined this naturalist core with a voluntary and customary law of nations based on consent, and his book was widely used by diplomats.

Grotius also drew on natural law but treated the law of nations as resting partly on the consent of states. Oppenheim and Brierly were twentieth-century positivist writers who grounded international law in the practice and consent of states.

Answer: B

The case is S.S. Wimbledon.

In the S.S. Wimbledon (1923), the Permanent Court of International Justice dealt with Germany's refusal to let a ship carrying munitions to Poland pass through the Kiel Canal, on the ground of its neutrality in the Russo-Polish war. The Court held that Article 380 of the Treaty of Versailles, which opened the canal to the vessels of all nations at peace with Germany, prevailed, so the treaty obligation displaced the general rules of neutrality Germany relied on.

The Lotus case (1927) concerned criminal jurisdiction on the high seas, Chorzow Factory (1928) reparation for breach, and Nicaragua (1986) was decided by the ICJ, not the PCIJ.