PIL CASE LAWS:

1. The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America

(1986) was a case where the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that the
U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their
rebellion against the Sandinistas and by mining Nicaragua's harbours. The
case was decided in favour of Nicaragua and against the United States with
the awarding of compensations to Nicaragua. – breached article 2(4) of UN
charter. Nicaragua brought a case to the ICJ against the USA. Nicaragua
claimed that the US had been recruiting, training, arming, equipping,
financing, supplying and otherwise encouraging, supporting, aiding, and
directing military and paramilitary actions in and against Nicaragua. In other
words, the US was supporting the 'contras' who aimed to overthrow the
government of Nicaragua.

2. United Kingdom v Norway [1951] ICJ , also known as the

Fisheries Case, was the culmination of a dispute, originating in 1933, over

how large an area of water surrounding Norway was Norwegian waters
(that Norway thus had exclusive fishing rights to) and how much was 'high
seas' (that the UK could thus fish). the UK requested that the International
Court of Justice determine how far Norway's territorial claim extended to sea,
and to award the UK damages in compensation for Norwegian interference
with UK fishing vessels in the disputed waters, claiming that Norway's claim to
such an extent of waters was against international law. the ICJ decided that
Norway's claims to the waters were consistent with international laws
concerning the ownership of local sea-space.

3. Colombia v Peru [1950] ICJ (also known as the Asylum Case) -

The ICJ recognised that the scope of Article 38 of the Statute of the
International Court of Justice encompassed bi-lateral and regional
international customary norms as well as general customary norms, in
much the same way as it encompasses bilateral and multilateral treaties. The
 Court also clarified that for custom to be definitively proven, it must be
continuously and uniformly executed.

The Colombian Ambassador in Lima, Peru allowed Víctor Torre, head of

the American People's Revolutionary Alliance sanctuary after his faction
lost a one-day civil war in Peru on 3 October 1948. The Colombian
government granted him asylum, but the Peruvian government refused to
grant him safe passage out of Peru. Colombia maintained that according to
the Conventions in force - the Bolivian Agreement of 1911 on Extradition, the
Havana Convention of 1928 on Asylum, the Montevideo Convention of 1933
on Political Asylum- and according to American International Law, they were
entitled to decide if asylum should be granted and their unilateral
decision on this was binding on Peru. Both submissions of Colombia
were rejected by the Court (ICJ). The relevant treaties cited by Colombia
were not ratified by Peru, and it was not found that the custom of Asylum
was uniformly or continuously executed sufficiently to demonstrate that the
custom was of a generally applicable character.

4. Paquete Habana v. United States (1900) was a landmark decision of the

United States Supreme Court concerning the applicability and recognition of
international law by the United States. The Court held that the capture of
fishing vessels as prizes of war violated customary international law,
which is integrated with U.S. law and binding as such.

5. The Alabama Claims were a series of demands for damages sought by

the government of the United States from the United Kingdom in 1869,
for the attacks upon Union merchant ships by Confederate Navy commerce
raiders built in British shipyards during the American Civil War. The claims
focused chiefly on the most famous of these raiders, the CSS Alabama,
which took more than sixty prizes before she was sunk off the French coast in
1864. After international arbitration endorsed the American position in 1872,
Britain settled the matter by paying the United States $15.5 million,
ending the dispute and leading to a treaty that restored friendly relations
between Britain and the United States. That international arbitration
 established a precedent, and the case aroused interest in codifying public
international law.

6. The Lotus case concerns a criminal trial which was the result of the
collision between the S.S. Lotus, a French steamship, and the S.S.
Bozkourt, a Turkish steamship, in a region of Greece). As a result of the
accident, eight Turkish nationals aboard the Bozkourt drowned when the
vessel was torn apart by the Lotus. The Lotus principle or Lotus approach,
usually considered a foundation of international law, says that sovereign
states may act in any way they wish so long as they do not contravene
an explicit prohibition. The application of this principle – an outgrowth of the
Lotus case – to future incidents raising the issue of jurisdiction over people on
the high seas was changed by article 11 of the 1958 High Seas Convention.