Publisher's Synopsis
A striking feature of the proceedings in the majority of cases before the International Court of justice since 1971 has been the absence from the courtroom of the state against which the proceedings have been brought. The various topical cases in which the possibility of 'non-appearance' has been resorted to by respondent states have given rise to a number of delicate problems of procedural law: and the phenomenon itself has caused disquiet. In this book, the first general study of the question to appear for over twenty years, the phenomenon is studied in the light of the statute and of the fundamental concepts and principles of international judicial procedure. The author, as an official of the court for over fifteen years, is particularly well qualified to expound a question of procedural law which, although apparently small in compass, is far-reaching in its implications for the future of international judicial settlement.
