Separate Opinion of Judge Sir Hersch Lauterpacht

SEPARATE OPINION
OF JUDGE SIR HERSCH LAUTERPACHT

While 1 concur in the operative part of the Judgment inasmuch
as the Court has declared itself incompetent to decide on the
merits of the case submitted to it, much regret that 1 do not find
myself in agreement with the grounds of the Judgment. As the
issues involved are intimately connected with the nature of the
decisions of the Court in the matter of its competence, as me11as
with some basic questions of its obligatory jurisdiction, consider

Declaration by Judge Moreno Quintana (as appended immediately after the judgment)

Done in French and English, the French text being authoritative,
at the Peace Palace,The Hague, this sixth day of July, onethousand
nine hundred and fifty-seven, in three copies, one of which will be
placed in the archives of the Court and the others will be trans-
mitted to the Government of the French Republic and to the
Government of the Kingdom of Norway, respectively.

(Signed) GREENH. HACKWORTH.

President:

Dissenting Opinion of Judge Moreno Quintana (translation)

DISSENTING OPINIOK OF JCDGE MORES0 QUINTANA
[Translation]
To my great regret, 1 am unable to concur in this case in the
opinion of the majority of my colleagues of the Court, nor in the
decision which the Judgment gives, nor in the reasons on which
that Judgment is based. 1 base my own position on considerations
of fact and of law, which have led me to take a dissenting view.

These considerations are as follows.

Declaration by Judge Spiropoulos (as appended immediately after the judgment)

trative acts should have been performed there in the ordinary

course of affairs. However, the fact that local conditions have
necessitated the normal and unchallenged exercise of Netherlands
administrative activity provides an additional reason why, in the
absence of clear provisions of a treaty, there is no necessity to
disturbthe existing state of affairs and to perpetuate a geographical
anomaly.

Declaration by Judge Sir Hersch Lauterpacht (as appended immediately after the judgment)

230 SOTrEREIGNTY OVER FRONTIER LAND (JUDGX~ENT 20 T71 59)
1892 and subsequently specifically covered by a separate Decla-

ration of December of that year. The Netherlands did not in 1892,
or at any time thereafter untilthe dispute arose between the two
States in 1922, repudiate the Belgian assertion of sovereignty.

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