Case Concerning East Timor (Portugal v Australia): ICJ 18 Jul 1995

Indonesia not accepting jurisdiction of International Court of Justice not bound by it. The Court refused, in the absence of Indonesia as a party, to entertain a claim brought by Portugal challenging Australia’s right to conclude a treaty with Indonesia to delimit the continental shelf in the area of the Timor Gap. Portugal’s claim was based on the proposition that it alone remained in law the administering power in respect of East Timor, despite the Portuguese authorities’ withdrawal from East Timor in 1975 followed by Indonesia’s intervention in and control of East Timor since 1975. Portugal’s claim against Australia necessarily depended upon showing that Indonesia had acquired no legal status in respect of East Timor and that Australia and Indonesia therefore had no right to enter into the Treaty. The very subject-matter of Portugal’s claim was the lawfulness of Indonesia’s conduct. But the Court also made clear that it was ‘not necessarily prevented from adjudicating when the judgment it is asked to give might affect the legal interests of a State which is not party to the case’

Citations:

Times 18-Jul-1995

Cited by:

CitedOccidental Exploration and Production Company vRepublic of Ecuador CA 9-Sep-2005
The parties had arbitrated their dispute in London under a bilateral investment treaty between the US and Ecuador. The republic sought to appeal the arbitration. The applicant now appealed an order that the English High Court had jurisdiction to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

International

Updated: 19 May 2022; Ref: scu.78931