HCI_H1_HIST_ 8814

This document consists of 4 printed pages. HWA CHONG INSTITUTION JC2 Preliminary Examination Higher 1 CANDIDATE NAME CT GROUP INDEX NUMBER HISTORY International History, c. 1945 – 2000 Additional Materials: Answer Paper 8814 August 2015 3 hours INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES Write your name and CT class clearly in the spaces at the top of this page. Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper. Do not use staples, paper clips, highlighters, glue or correction fluid. Attempt both Section A and Section B. Attempt one question from Section A and only three questions from Section B. Please start every question on a fresh sheet of paper and label each question clearly. If you did not manage to complete a question, please hand in a piece of blank paper with your name and CT on it. At the end of the examination, fasten your responses with the string provided together. All questions in this paper carry equal marks.

8814/HCI/PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION/2015 2 Section A You must answer Question 1. The United Nations International Court of Justice 1. Read the sources and then answer the question. Source A The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the Uni ted Nations and began work in April 1946. The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies. The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. It is assisted by a Registry, its administrative organ. Extract from the ICJ website Source B The bottom line is clear. Judges vote in favour of their own countries and in favour of countries that match the economic, political, and (somewhat more weakly) cultural attributes of their own countries. Whether this level of bias matters depends on what the ICJ is supposed to accomplish. According to one study, compliance with ICJ judgments hovers around 60 percent level. It may be that states are aware that the ICJ judges are sometimes but not always biased and that the states are more likely to use the ICJ and comply with the judgments when they believe that the judgments are not biased. When a state’s own judge votes against his or her home state, or when judges from a given bloc vote against a party from that bloc, the state may take the judgment more seriously than otherwise and may be more inclined to comply with it. If so, the ICJ may play a useful role, albeit under narrow conditions and for limited purposes. A law professor in an academic journal, 2005

8814/HCI/PREL