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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2017
1 Excerpted text of judgment.
1 See this Journal, Supp., Vol. 29 (1935), p. 282.
2 See this Journal, Supp., Vol. 22 (1928), p. 158.
1 This Journal, Supp., Vol. 28 (1934), p. 70.
2 This Journal, Supp., Vol. 37 (1943), p. 99.
* Judges Alvarez, Badawi Pasha, Bead and Azevedo, and Judge ad hoc Caicedo, delivered dissenting opinions, not printed here. Judge Zoriěić accepted the first three points of the Judgment and the reasons in support thereof, but disagreed with the last point; he thought asylum was granted in conformity with Article 2, paragraph 2, of the Havana Convention, and shared Judge Read’s views on this point.
On the day of the Judgment, Colombia requested an interpretation of the Judgment,, under Article 60 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, inquiring whether the Judgment (1) must be interpreted in the sense that the qualification of the offense as political, made by the Colombian Ambassador, was correct; (2) must be interpreted to mean that Peru is not entitled to demand surrender of the refugee and that Colombia is not bound to surrender him if requested; and (3) implies that Colombia is bound to surrender the refugee to the Peruvian authorities, “even if the latter do not so demand, in spite of the fact that he is a political offender and not a common criminal, and that the only convention applicable to the present case does not order the surrender of political offenders.”
On November 27, 1950, the Court, by a vote of twelve to one (Judge ad hoc Caicedo dissenting), held the request by Colombia for interpretation to be inadmissible. The Court found that the first point was not raised in the submissions of Colombia leading to the Judgment; on the second and third points it said that the question of surrender of the refugee to the Peruvian Government “was completely left outside the submissions of the Parties. The Judgment in no way decided it, nor could it do so. It was for the Parties to present their respective claims on this point. The Court finds that they did nothing of the kind.” It stated that “the real purpose” of the request must be to obtain an interpretation, and not to obtain an answer to questions not decided; in addition, “it is necessary that there should exist a dispute as to the meaning or scope of the Judgment.” Here the Court found that: “The ‘gaps’ which the Colombian Government claims to have discovered in the Court’s Judgment in reality are new questions, which cannot be decided by means of interpretation.” It added that, “In reality, the object of the questions submitted by the Colombian Government is to obtain, by the indirect means of interpretation, a decision on questions which the Court was not called upon by the Parties to answer.” Nor was there here any “dispute as to meaning or scope of the Judgment,” since a “dispute requires a divergence of views between the parties on definite points.” (Judgment of November 27th, 1950, I.C.J. Beports, 1950, p. 395.) In a new action in this case brought by Colombia against Peru on Dec. 13, 1950, the International Court of Justice issued an order on Jan. 3, 1951, fixing the timelimits for filing of pleadings by the parties as Feb. 7, 1951, for the Government of Colombia, and March 15, 1951, for the Government of Peru.