The International Court of Justice and the progressive humanization of consular law: from Breard to Jadhav

Abstract

The process of humanization that international law has been experiencing has been progressively opening up, within consular law. The author analyzes in this article the evolution of the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice regarding article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, asking to what extent the information on the right to consular assistance could be considered as a human right beyond the inter-State dimension of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In the five cases that have been raised on this matter, the ICJ has ruled on the merits of four of them, and it is possible to perceive an evolution between the case law of the Avena and Diallo cases regarding the individual's position and the protection of his rights within an interstate dispute before the Court. However, the ICJ has avoided analyzing the debate on the nature of consular rights as human rights.