Bahrain participates in ICJ's hearings on countries' appeal relating to ICAO Jurisdiction

The Hague, Dec. 5 (BNA): The International Court of Justice (ICJ) today held the second round of oral hearings of the appeal submitted by the representatives of the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Arab Republic of Egypt to the Court, at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Kingdom of the Netherlands. The four countries’ appeal relates to the competence of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) under article 84 of the International Air Navigation Convention and the competence of ICAO Council under the second section of Article 2 of the 1944 Convention of the International Convention on Transit Services. The second hearings began through deliberations by representatives and lawyers of the four countries who focused on the lack of competence of the International Maritime Organisation to consider measures imposed on airspace by the four countries on 5 June 2017. In their deliberations, they also responded to the attempts by the representative of Qatar during the first round of the court hearings to ignore the fact that the main causes of disagreement stemmed from the failure of the State of Qatar to abide by the Riyadh Agreements of 2013 and 2014 in addition to Qatar’s violation of international conventions and legislation, which compelled the four countries to take legitimate measures to protect their security and national sovereignty. Besides, the representatives of the four countries affirmed that it is incorrect to submit the issue of disagreement to the ICAO and its council for being a technical organisation while the content and causes of the case are related to matters of regional peace and security and do not fall under the Council's jurisdiction. They stressed that the decisions taken by the ICAO Council were marred by some major institutional irregularities that affected their outputs and called for neutralizing them and not to take them into account. In the closing remarks of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Ambassador of the Kingdom and its Representative to the International Court of Justice, Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, noted that the GCC leaders have made many serious attempts to make Qatar refrain from supporting terrorism and extremism. This was, he said, within the framework of the Council and the 2013 and 2014 Riyadh Agreements which set up follow-up and implementation mechanisms but in the absence of Qatar's adherence to these and other international obligations, the four countries took action on June 5, 2017, to protect their national security. The Ambassador stressed that the four countries’ measures were in conformity with international norms and laws, and that the State of Qatar was supposed to bring the matter to the right regional and international channels for negotiation as per the laws of the Council before going to the ICAO Council. He stressed that Qatar's claims in the deliberations of the first round were not well-founded, during which the representative of Qatar claimed that the four countries refused to take part in mediation efforts, asserting that the four countries have always participated with efficiency in all mediation endeavours on the contrary of Qatar which failed to discuss the matter in regional gatherings and through the Gulf Cooperation Council. The Ambassador noted that the Kingdom of Bahrain has always been open to discuss the main causes of the dispute with the parties concerned at international forums to attain a settlement and that Qatar must show goodwill and seriousness to reach appropriate solutions. The hearings, which began on 2 December 2019 will continue until 6 December 2019, with two rounds of oral arguments to consider two appeals from the four States on the competence of ICAO Council to issue decisions regarding the airspace measures imposed on Qatar by the Quartet in June 2017. The four countries appealed the decisions of the Council, and the Court will consider whether Qatar can present the case to a civil aviation technical organisation that focuses in particular on matters relating to technical aviation matters, procedures and laws and that does not involve any specialists or politicians. It is noteworthy that the dispute is all about vital issues of national security and stability of the appealing countries and the non-compliance of the State of Qatar to international obligations under the Riyadh and other regional and international agreements.