The use of force in the Nicaraguan Cases

The 1986 judgment in Nicaragua v. United States is of seminal importance in the development of international law governing the use of force, crowning a process of legal development that began in the first decades of the century. The case concerned various forms of material and logistical support provided by the United States to contra rebels in Nicaragua who were directly responsible for armed attacks. After unsuccessfully challenging Nicaragua’s request for provisional measures and failing at the jurisdiction and admissibility stage, the United States boycotted subsequent proceedings. The Court relied upon customary international law, given the multilateral treaty reservation to jurisdiction of the United States. It distinguished the most grave forms of the use of force (those constituting an armed attack) from other less grave forms. The Court rejected the idea that collective self-defence might have justified the use of force. The judgment has been considered in several subsequent cases before the Court and its holdings on the use of force continue to influence the broader debate, in particular with respect to the provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as amended by the Kampala Review Conference, governing the crime of aggression.

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