Dr Paparinskis contributes to a declaration on jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice

On 24 September, HE Mr Egīls Levits, the President of the Republic of Latvia, deposited Latvia’s declaration recognising as compulsory the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (Declaration) with the Secretary-General of the United Nations in New York. This declaration makes Latvia the seventy-fourth State to deposit a declaration recognizing the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (Court) as compulsory.

The process of recognition of the jurisdiction of the Court by Latvia commenced in 2017, when the Council of Independent Experts in International and European Law with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia (Council) was asked to draft an opinion on the Declaration. Dr Martins Paparinskis, Reader in Public International Law at UCL Laws, is a member of the Council since 2012. He was the rapporteur (lead drafter) of the opinion, which served as the basis for the December 2017 law ‘On the recognition of jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice’ and the August 2019 governmental regulation ‘On the Declaration recognizing jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice as compulsory’. On most points, the Declaration follows the language suggested in the 2017 Council’s opinion.